Crainte
by pandorasocks
Summary: Fear spreads like wildfire in Gotham during Bane's reign, but the very heart of fear is in Crane's court, where he continues to "improve" upon his toxin. Bridget Avery is unwittingly subjected to these tests when she takes the place of a child during a trial – innocence is lost as unhealthy obsessions form, and a martyr's sacrifice can truly only go so far. (Eventual CraneOC)
1. Introduction

_Summary:_ Fear spreads like wildfire in Gotham during Bane's reign, but the very heart of fear is in Crane's court, where he continues to "improve" upon his toxin. Bridget Avery is unwittingly subjected to these tests when she takes the place of a child during a trial – innocence is lost as unhealthy obsessions form, and a martyr's sacrifice can truly only go so far.

_Trigger warnings: _Mentions of rape, sexism, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, emotional/physical abuse, manipulation and murder. Let me know if I miss anything, because I do not want to hurt anyone.

_Note: _I do not own Batman, nor am I affiliated with the movies or characters.

* * *

**Introduction**

They were lined up in front of the court, shaking and shivering and sniffling, all of them jacket-less and all of them frost-bitten. The courtroom was not much warmer than the outside, but there was enough of an improvement for them to feel relieved. The walk had been a long one, and a horrifying one; they'd been holed up in a warehouse for weeks, and the harsh truth of what happened to Gotham was like a punch to the face, or a cold shower in the morning. It shocked them; but especially her. She had always had a blind faith in the people of Gotham – she believed there was good in everyone.

But there was no goodness on the streets – not anymore, at least.

Children wailed and called for their mothers, who'd either abandoned them or been raped and killed; women ran from dirty pursuers, or hid their sex under heavy jackets, tying their hair under their hoods. Men were everywhere. They fought and fucked and called out crude remarks. Her father had held her close to his side with strong, sure arms and for only a moment, she felt safe. Bane's men came and separated them, though, throwing her father in the front of the line. Her dad had always been a strong man, tough and protective, and she felt her legs go weak at the thought of him being pushed around by criminals. _He'll fight back,_ she thought and fought the urge to vomit. _He'll fight back and get himself killed, and then he'll be no good to anyone_. Relief washed over her when he did not fight back; he allowed himself to be bullied by the bigger men, allowed himself one fleeting look at her. He did mouth something, but she hadn't understood. She had bit her lips to stop herself from crying, "what?"

With the absence of her father, she walked on, but the catcalls worsened. A dirty, bearded man even sprung forward towards her, and she let out a bloodcurdling scream; one of Bane's soldiers shot him down, and his body collapsed into a lifeless heap on the ground. She stood and watched as his chest rose and fell for the last time, and felt a heat rising in her stomach – literally. His blood, warm, red and real, had landed on her white shirt. The soldier stood next to her for the rest of the trek. She trembled and shook, and even cried, but the man said nothing. And the blood… It remained there, like a warning, for the rest of the walk.

No other man approached her.

The air was cold as ice, and the orders that the men barked at them were even colder. She caught sight of her sister, Maria – only ten, with tears streaking her reddened face – and nearly ran towards her, but stopped herself. She had no desire to die. Fortunately, a kinder looking woman had grabbed her arm and gently led her back into the group. Her sister looked so tiny in the streets, and so defenceless. The perfect prey for the majority of the men that Bane had freed. She felt a surge of affection towards the woman who'd reined in Maria, the girl wonder; she'd find her later and thank her.

They rounded the corner and came to a more defaced, desolate area of the city.

Empty bottles and empty bags – just big enough for a few ounces of whatever the labs could cook up with such short supplies – littered the ground, amongst broken and used condoms and the occasional article of clothing. The windows of shops were shattered, and the bookstore where she had worked one summer was almost completely defaced. A week before, someone had covered the walls in a graffiti Batman, requesting people to "fight back"; Bane must not have liked that, because the store was turned almost completely into ashes. She could even see bones – the bones of her old boss, presumably – sticking out behind a shelf. He died with his store, she thought, and the thought made her sad. The poor man hadn't had anyone else, or anything else; just that goddamned store and his life, and now, he had neither. She remembered that people started fires up and down the streets, and huddled around them. She had seen that happen before in the Narrows, but not in the middle of the city, in the heart of her world; it was strange how much things had changed. How different everything was, and yet how similar. It made her sad.

She switched her focus back to the present. The courtroom – or, the old City Hall – was in a wild state of disarray. The "honorable judge", Jonathan Crane (or, Scarecrow) had littered the floor with papers, presumably holding the identities of all "guilty" parties. She wondered how many people he'd killed already. She'd heard of the exile of Charles Daggett's assistant, Phil-something, from her friend, Beth. But whispers on the street told different stories; the man chose exile, but fell through the cracked ice that Bane's men threw him out on and drowned. _If someone had tried to save him he might still be alive_, she thought. _Someone had to prove that just because the man had done some rotten, wicked things did not mean he deserved to die; so he had a job, so he had power and abused it? He was a run-of-the-mill douche, nothing more and nothing less. He'd never raped or killed or tortured, and that was more than could be said for his persecutors. _

Crane sat at a podium made of dozens of desks, stacked precariously on top of each other, and his jury was scattered across the great room. His hair was mussed, sticking up in all directions, and his eyes – always strikingly blue – were wild. A smug smirk was stamped across his face, and she had to suppress a shiver. He wasn't terrifying – but what he did, and what he was capable of doing… that was terrifying. Hell, she was certain that the only reason he didn't rip Gotham apart himself was because Bane would do it in a few short months; the criminal was, in her opinion, crazier than Bane, and therefore, more dangerous (though, admittedly, he wasn't as dangerous as the Joker; whom no one had heard of since Bane freed Arkham. No one knew where he was).

"Found 'em 'oled up in the Narrows, sir," she heard someone say in a scratchy, accented voice. "'Iding away… that one – yessir, that one right there – 'e was the one what tried to free Miss Tate, and that Fox man…"

As horrible as it was, relief washed over her; she was not the target. She didn't know who it was that the accented-man spoke of, but she was certain it was not her family. They were made up of people intelligent enough to protect themselves; some might've called them cowards. She was all right with that, as long as they knew one thing: she, Bridget Avery, was more of a survivor than anyone who would try and rebel. She took her own life and protected it, and in doing so, she kept her family safe; her friends, too. Anyone who did otherwise was either incredibly righteous; maybe too righteous. There'd been a sort of rally weeks before, she'd heard; someone was trying to raise an army against Bane. But the hope of defeating him had been quashed with the death of the leader. Even days later, people whispered of the leader, calling him a hero, or a martyr.

Bridget couldn't think of herself as a martyr; she couldn't think of herself as a soldier, either, come to think of it. The thought of strapping a gun into a holster and patrolling the streets made her feel alive, but the thought of ending someone's life made her feel sick.

_You're a hero, or you're not. You're a saint, or you're not. There is no common ground. _

The girl standing next to her – Abbey or Amy or Annie – grabbed her hand with her own, sweaty-fingered hand, and Bridget looked down at her. Around ten or eleven, she was pretty, but dirty and covered in sweat. The sudden change in temperature must've been to blame for that. Light blonde hair and pale skin, with rosy cheeks and cartoonish freckles covering her face; the little girl was nearly a replica of Bridget when she was a child. Though, admittedly, the girl was tinier.

It felt nice to hold on to something, and as the jury started to become more aware of the fact that they would be deciding the fate of over thirty people, it was nice to keep a tight grip on reality. Death was always inevitable; she'd just hoped to have reached twenty.

The volume of the jury went from the squeaking of mice to the roaring of lions.

"Death!" Someone shouted, before Crane had the chance to speak.

_ This is chaos_, she thought to herself, taking note of the faces she recognized. There were a few men who used to belong to Maroni; a few men who'd been imprisoned when she was young (Victor Zsaz being a prime example); and a small group of boys who she recognized as junior high drug dealers. With horror, she realised they couldn't have been more than fifteen – and they were cheering for death, praising madmen.

"Death! Death!"

"We haven't done anything," the little girl whispered, and Bridget let go of her hand to adjust their positioning; the girl was leaning up against her leg, with one of Bridget's arms slung over her shoulder protectively. Her hand felt cold without the clammy feel of the girl.

"_DEATH_!"

_Shut up shut up SHUT UP_.

When Crane banged the gavel, however, the jury grew silent as the grave. His eyes scanned the over the jurors, and then, over them. He did not look at her for long, and Bridget breathed a sigh of relief. Being singled out by a psychopath wasn't exactly on her bucket list.

Crane cleared his throat, and Bridget tightened her grip on the girl.

_Don't look at him_, she advised herself, and she didn't. She studied the dirt that had been engrained in her fingernails and the faces of the more vicious men in the crowd, but she didn't look at him. She counted grooves in the flooring, and memorized the way the jury breathed –their breath puffed out like smoke. They panted and licked at their grimy lips like wolves anticipating the slaughter.

She shuddered.

When Crane spoke, the jury – already impossibly quiet – stood still with anticipation. "Is there a Ron Sutton present?" He asked, his voice hoarse.

A flurry of movement and a terrified shout later, and the man - fleshy, with greying ginger hair and a thick neck – was thrown in front of Crane. Sweat stained his tweed jacket, and he shivered and shook where he stood. It took Bridget a moment to recognize him as _The _Ron Sutton that her father complained about nightly – her father's boss. He was nearly illiterate and rude, always ill-informed and perpetually late; but even he did not deserve what Crane would do.

"Are they going to kill him?" The little girl asked, blunt enough in her phrasing that Bridget was taken aback.

"No," she answered quickly, because it was the best lie she had available and it was the best reaction she had on the tip of her tongue. When a ten year old asks you if Santa Claus is real, you lie and you say "yes". When a ten year old asks if Peter Pan will come for them some day and show them how breathtaking Wonderland is, you lie and you say "of course". But when a ten year old asks you a question like that – a question that has only one right answer, one cruel and unjust answer – the only way to respond is to lie and tell them exactly what they know will not happen. You say, "it will be okay," and they know it won't. Children aren't as stupid as adults make them out to be.

The girl closed her eyes, and Bridget did not. She kept them open, wide enough to see everything that happened. Crane's mouth still formed a sneer, an all-knowing and cruel smirk. She knew that the man would die – his sentence was death no matter what he picked.

"Don't kill me," Ron Sutton stammered, and Bridget felt a surge of pity for him. She felt the urge to pray – something she hadn't done since she was ten. "Please, don't kill me – take anyone – _anyone _else – but _me_."

A desperate man would make desperate pleas, but Bridget couldn't excuse it, and it seemed that neither could the rest of the jury. There was a collective gasp – horrified and embarrassed and stunned – and the little girl started to sniffle again, but not from the cold. She felt the heat and the wetness of the girl's tears through the stiff fabric of her jeans, and swallowed hard.

She could list the things that were wrong in seconds, because in that moment, all she knew was the wrong. _I've been wearing the same jeans for a week, and I smell like a wet dog. My breath is poisonous and there are knots in my hair. I am frostbitten. I don't know where my parents are. There is a child clinging to my leg like it's a lifeline. Ron Sutton is a massive coward. I am going to die._

Her breathing slowed with the truth of her words; there was no stopping it. She would have to take what was given to her.

And it all fell to pieces when Crane spoke; the fragile and false sense of calmness that had washed over her was scattered with his words. "The girl," he said, eyebrows quirking upwards.

One of his long fingers was gesturing at someone near her – she looked around to see the poor thing, but found that everyone had taken at least four steps backwards. She heard screams coming from the crowd of them, and recognized them as her mother's. _He's pointing at me_, she thought. She breathed in heavily and felt her legs shaking, and just as she went to step forward, someone grabbed her arm and yanked her backwards.

"Thank you," Ron Sutton stammered – though she scarcely heard him over the beating of her own heart – and she felt her mouth go dry. _I'm going to vomit_.

"Not _you_," the person hissed, and Bridget did not recognize the speaker because she was weak and blinded with fear. "The _little_ one."

She whirled around, feeling as though the air had been sucked from her lungs. Her throat was tight and as she turned to see the girl, whose face was red and puffy from the tears, and who looked as though she may pass out.

_I'm going to puke_, she thought, and she opened her mouth, but what came out was "_No!_"

She hadn't realised it, but she had ran forward, one arm gripping the other girl's so tightly that she might've stopped her blood from flowing – she didn't care. Her heart pounded in her chest furiously, and she felt as if she were floating. Crane stared at her, blue eyes icy and cold and foreign – she'd never been looked at before with that much indifference.

"This doesn't concern you." His voice was flippant and annoyed, and Bridget bit her lip, but did not stand down. She clutched the girl's arm harder, until the girl winced, and then tugged the girl behind her back. Amy, she remembered her name was.

Amy was whimpering uncontrollably, and one of Bridget's hands held her still.

Ron Sutton watched it all with the awe of a coward; the awe of someone who'd underestimated pure evil. He hadn't been bothered that Crane had picked the girl, but had he expected Crane to? The man was fear incarnate, and Amy had sniffled and cried her way through it all. She was the only one who'd shown her terror – and consequently, she was the only one Crane was interested in.

"Step _away_."

"No," Bridget repeated, and her voice was too high-pitched to be her own, too shaky and too quiet. Everyone in the courtroom listened, and she heard – from somewhere in the room – the crying of her younger sister, something like a wail. "How about a trade?" She said, and her voice was _not _her own, definitely not, because the words were wrong. She did not want to take Amy's place, she just wanted to get both of them out, she just wanted out –

"…I'm listening."

"Me for her," she whispered. "My life for hers, and I don't care what you do, she's just a little girl, please, just… take me instead."

Crane blinked exaggeratedly, looked down at his desk (was he… amused?), "Are you certain you wish to do this?"

"Please," Bridget quaked, quieter than before and less certain, because Amy had started crying again and she didn't know what else to say; didn't know what else to _do_.

"Excellent," he said, the smirk back on his lips. He motioned to two of the jury members – big and burly men – who strode towards her. One tore Amy from her grasp; the other grabbed Bridget and pulled her away from the shrieking girl. She couldn't scream, though; she was numb to everything, completely weightless. She felt as if she could float through the air, that was how disconnected she was. It was her nature; when she was afraid, she would stop feeling – she would completely shut down.

From the back of the room, wails started and someone shouted, "NO!" and she turned for a fraction of a second, just quick enough to see a man with black hair and blue eyes running towards her. _Dad_, she thought. She didn't see what happened next, but she heard the sound of blows being landed and she flinched.

_Don't kill him, don't kill him, please, don't kill him…_

She had to remind herself to breathe, and everything was shaking and spinning – Bridget was certain her throat was seizing up. Tears welled in her wide eyes, and she blinked furiously to get rid of them.

The man led her towards Crane, where he shoved her towards two other men – they were smaller, but they wore gas masks, and she wasn't an idiot. She knew what the masks were for and she trembled; she trembled because she was weak and horror-struck and numb and all she wanted to do was go _home,_ wherever that was, and curl into her bed. She wanted to sleep forever, wrapped up in warm blankets in some safe place. But she could not, and she was forced to face the reality that was in front of her.

Crane came down from the podium quickly, clutching his torn, weathered mask in one hand, clenching his fist with the other. He waved the men towards a door – oak, with bullet holes and a blood spatter across the front – and one of them let go of her arm to yank it open.

What happened was something that she would try to forget. What happened next would haunt her nightmares and keep her up well into the night for the rest of her existence.

Screams soared through the air, furious and petrified and desperate, and she heard sobbing and sniffling and pleads of, "make it stop, make them go _away_!"

The men lead her into the room, nails digging little crescents into her arms, and she winced involuntarily. The room was sectioned off into fourteen cubicles, with gates fencing the people in. _Like livestock_, she thought with a dread so overwhelming she gagged. Crane stared at her, hard, and she composed herself. People clawed at their faces, slammed against the walls and wailed. Someone even cried for their mother. She stopped walking only once, to peer into one of the cages. The inhabitant – a man – flung himself against the small opening in the door – and she shrieked wildly, stumbling backwards into one of her captors –, crying a word she couldn't determine, before falling to the ground hysterically.

"Keep her _close_!" Crane snapped, and the men tugged her along compliantly.

They reached an empty stall, and the men flung her inside so that she fell on her ass and stepped aside, granting Crane entrance. He walked towards her and then kneeled so that he was at her level. He gave her a condescending smile, a slight spasm of his lips, and opened his wrist to reveal a syringe.

She started to whimper, shying away from him as much as was possible, until he grasped her wrist with one cold hand. _I hate needles_, she thought rather dumbly. _Besides, I thought it was a gas, not a needle –_

_You'll die either way, you fucking stupid girl. _

He slipped the syringe into her most prominent vein, quickly and efficiently, and terror consumed her –

"Do you like my mask?"

Her screams did not reach the outside world.

* * *

_Author's Note:_ So, that was a thing that just happened in your life, and whether you loved it or hated it, I'm glad you read it. And yes, before you ask, this is a self-insert story, but please refrain from flaming just because of this. Last names have been changed, of course, for confidentiality and my own personal safety, but you get the idea. I'd really appreciate it if you reviewed or even added this to your alerts if you enjoyed it. Thank you!

- Bridget


	2. A Girl, a Terrorist and a Deal

_Summary:_ Fear spreads like wildfire in Gotham during Bane's reign, but the very heart of fear is in Crane's court, where he continues to "improve" upon his toxin. Bridget Avery is unwittingly subjected to these tests when she takes the place of a child during a trial – innocence is lost as unhealthy obsessions form, and a martyr's sacrifice can truly only go so far.

_Trigger warnings: _Mentions of rape, sexism, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, emotional/physical abuse, manipulation and murder. Also, drowning, psychological trauma and Let me know if I miss anything, because I do not want to hurt anyone.

_Note: _I do not own Batman, nor am I affiliated with the movies or characters.

* * *

**Chapter One**

You're falling now. You're swimming. This is not

harmless. You are not

breathing.

― Richard Siken, Crush

* * *

She had nearly drowned three times in her life.

First, when she was five, and in her cousin's pool – her mother left her alone for only a moment (maybe she hadn't even been aware that Bridget was still in the water – Bridget had never thought to ask), and came running back outside to see a small, blonde thing struggling against the water. "Mommy," Bridget had whimpered through the water that flooded her mouth, and her mother had dove into the water fully clothed to pull her out.

The next time she was eleven and the beach and in possession of a hero complex. There was a girl at the beach who'd been pulled too far out, and no one did anything except for watch with looks of shock on their faces. The girl's aunt and uncle had stood, slack-jawed, at the girl who struggled in the water. _Why aren't they doing anything?_ She had wondered, with the mindset of a child.

Thoughts of death couldn't touch her, because she was a kid. Death was a fairytale; a hoax. Death was an all-express paid vacation that her grandfather had taken; death was her aunt's dog being given "to a blind man". Death wasn't real.

But the danger _was_, and she saw that clearly.

The height of the waves was uncommonly high, the tides wickedly strong; the drowning girl's head was barely visible above the whitecaps. Bridget had raced forward, thrown herself into the wild surf and swam as fast and hard as her legs would allow her. She reached the girl in time for a wave to crash over their heads, dragging them both underwater. She didn't let go; she just tightened her grip, even though she was breathless and nearly motionless. Swim, you idiot, she'd thought, swim, swim, swim, you can't do much but you can do that, at least.

The girl lived, only slightly shaky, and Bridget had been grounded for a week after that incident.

"Don't you ever, ever do that again," her mother had scolded her, more worried than angry. Bridget hadn't been allowed near water unsupervised again until she was thirteen.

The last time, she did it on purpose. She was fourteen and it was night, and the lights from the house reflected so prettily off of the water – she didn't realise how long she'd been underneath until she started feeling dizzy, and she couldn't get to the surface fast enough after that.

She loved the water, loved the sea; but she feared it, too. Not everyone knew how dangerous it really was; and those who did oftentimes didn't live to share the secret.

(-)

Bridget Avery was drowning again.

It wasn't logical, but it was happening. Her lungs felt too heavy, too _full_ and every breath that she took tasted like salt. The water crashed over her head like waves and she clawed at her throat, tried to force herself to breathe – but every time she did take a breath, her head grew dizzier and her lungs grew heavier and she sunk even further into the water, no matter how much she moved her arms or how hard she kicked her legs.

Her throat was clenching up, tightening violently and she folded in on herself. Something was making an awful lot of noise – a shriek, but rawer and crueller and she ripped her hands from her throat and threw them over her ears.

And despite the noise, the sea did not relent. If anything, it grew rougher and colder, more and more violent as time passed – but she'd managed to bring herself to the surface, once (and once was enough, really) and she'd breathed in deeply, nearly relieved. But then another wave had come and knocked her down again, dragged her far underneath the surface and the scream that she'd tried to let out turned to bubbles.

When she thrashed and tried to pull herself to the air, the sea fought back. Turbulent, forceful waves smashed atop her head; when she thought of swimming to shore, the current picked up and towed her further out to sea. _Ride it out_, she thought in a voice that wasn't her own. _Aren't you supposed to ride the currents, not fight against them?_

_If I don't fight, then I'll die_, she thought and for long a moment, she considered it. _Death_. Death would be sweeter than the relentless crushing, the constant white noise that was the ocean; death had to be better than the intense pressure of water; death was so much kinder than drowning.

Bridget thought she might try to swim to the surface again – but she was too tired. Her muscles had cramped, badly, and she shook with the effort that it took not to scream. The air in her lungs was going stale, though, making her lungs burn and tighten until she felt she might _burst_.

_If you can touch the bottom, you can force yourself up_. Bridget didn't know how deep she was – she didn't know how long it would take for her to reach the ocean's floor. Fear made her thoughtless; how could she possibly extract herself from the current? It was violent, wild, untameable; worse than any current she'd ever gotten stuck in before, worse than any current she'd even heard of. She pushed all the air from her lungs with one quick exhale, slapped her arms down.

Bridget moved.

The water rushed around her slowly, and her eyes burned like coals. The salt _stung_, and so she shut her eyes to block out the pain.

_Come on, come on_, she thought (though it sounded more like a chant.) and her feet landed on the ocean floor, landed so hard that she thought her legs may break, but she'd done it – she'd tried and it had worked, and that was new.

She thrust herself upwards, and the water bubbles around her.

It was a more direct trip than she'd imagined.

She broke the surface and she gasped, opening her eyes wildly, treading water as best she could; her lungs burned, but with relief, not with the empty, dry feeling they'd had before. Her eyes were bloodshot, she could just tell – they burned, too, but it was a different kind of burning.

It was hard to keep her head above water when she felt so lightheaded, so on fire, so she flipped onto her back, floated. She closed her eyes. She sputtered and coughed and even ducked under water once or twice, accidentally, and the sea was calm for a moment.

When she caught her breath, when she calmed herself, she started swimming. Her limbs ached with effort, but she didn't slow, kicking and dragging her arms through the water, which was growing choppier by the second; it was hard to move through, too, increasingly dense.

Bridget panted. The squawking of seagulls sounded an awful lot like screaming from where she was.

_Don't you dare stop._

She kicked her legs, moved her arms with fervor. The shoreline was still so very far away, but she could see it; it didn't look promising, but it was land and it was safe.

And then, there was a roaring behind her, and she knew what it was without looking. The sound was recognizable, the sound reminded her of home, and yet it was dangerous – the crashing of waves was familiar, but not all things that are familiar are friendly.

The wave broke quickly, the force of it stronger than the current that she'd been stuck in before; more forceful than the waves had been before. She went under the water again, without a scream, all of the calm and all of the relief sucked away, all of her breath gone, too.

The waves did not relent. They smashed down upon her, harder and harder, and they pushed her back and forth, pulled her further out to sea and then shoved her towards the shore. The way that they moved her was violent, and the way that she moved should've killed her. She was knocked into rocks, rolled around until by the wild waves until she didn't know which way would bring her to the surface. Her lungs tightened and her eyes itched and she took in great gasps of the salty water. She should've been _dead_; she hadn't breathed for what felt like hours.

The other times she'd nearly drowned hadn't lasted nearly as long; they'd been terrible and terrifying, but still – they'd been over in minutes. Time was funny. Time was an old man waiting for the bus, tapping his feet on the wet spring ground; time was a little girl playing with a jump rope until her mother called her in for lunch. Time was when an airplane just missed a lightning storm, when a phone call stopped a man from entering a burning building. Time was irrelevant, the metaphorical business man who walked down a crowded city street. Time was unnoticed, until it became the most important thing. In those moments, time was the most important thing because Bridget Avery was nearly out of it. The effects of being breathless were just starting to kick in; her vision danced with black spots, her body went even limper than before. Absolutely weak; completely powerless.

She wasn't dead, she was dying, and the difference between those two things was the one ounce of breath left inside her.

Bridget went completely deaf, completely numb, suspended in the water for a moment, before it all disappeared.

(-)

Bridget slept for a long, long time.

Her dreams were nonsensical; men were chased by wolves and wolves were chased by women. Someone screamed, loud and drawn out, and threw rocks at her. A scarecrow hung in a field, and she walked towards it, but the scarecrow was alive and it jumped down from its hanging place and she screeched but could not run. In the tamest of the dreams, she followed her family down a foggy road, running behind them until they disappeared and all she had left was the taste of ash in her mouth and the feeling of forgetting something important. The sea was – somehow – always present, though, waging a war with itself; whitecaps smashed against the rocky shoreline, the water itself _alive_ somehow. She couldn't explain it, not even to herself; words had never been her strong suit.

When she woke up – cold, disoriented and alone – her vision was blurred and her head pounded wildly. Bridget winced, closing her eyes tightly and bringing her hand up to tentatively rub her forehead. When she could open her eyes, she realised that her entire location had changed. She was no longer in the room where Crane's men had brought her; instead, she was strewn across an air-mattress in a plain room. The walls were white, with one small window and one door, and the only furnishings were the mattress, a coffee table, and a faded, tattered, pink chair. The room smelled of mint and mildew, the most unpleasant of combinations, and as awful as it was, she did not much care. Her mind was occupied by other things.

She looked down at herself, to find that she was unchanged; no one had touched her. The blood was still on her shirt, and that, combined with the fear and the unknown and the sea, made her retch; the contents of her stomach emptied onto the cold floor, and she wiped her mouth with the back of her hands unsteadily. She couldn't stop shaking. Her hands trembled and her body rocked back and forth, and she knotted her hands into her hair to steady herself.

For a long time, she thought of drowning. The sea hadn't ebbed; it had _crushed_. It had waged a war against her, an unfair war, because the ocean was strong and cold and surging water, and she was merely skin and bones and blood.

The more she thought about the water, the more she trembled. She could still feel the rocking, still feel the crushing waves.

She didn't waste time lying in bed, though. Bridget tried the door, but it was locked – she'd figured that would happen. She moved away from the door slowly, wanting to break it down. Her legs were cramped and sore, but she paced around, thinking of Amy and the sea and Crane and drowning and her family and what, exactly, had happened. It was impossible for her to make sense of any of it. She still couldn't believe that she had prevented Crane from taking Amy – things like that required strength; they required sacrifice, and _bravery_, and Bridget was not brave, nor was she sacrificial. She was never the type to take someone's place, never the type to speak up to defend the innocent or the weak. Bridget _wasn't_ heroic. She'd done what she'd done out of fear, out of desperation and the thought that children shouldn't know what it's like to look evil in the face. Children should, in her opinion, be able to stay childlike for as long as it was possible.

Questions flooded her mind, and because she had no answers, they stayed with her while she waited for – well, for _something_.

She grew dizzy, grew weak, and in the end, she laid back on the air mattress the thin blanket wrapped around her tightly, a light cocoon, and she closed her eyes, making a mental note of her questions. _Where am I?_, she asked herself. _Why am I here? What's going to happen to me? Where are my parents and my sister… and where is Amy? Are they all right – are they even _alive_?_

The contemplation of them all being dead made her feel ill and she put her head between her legs to steady herself.

_Breathe_, a voice reminded her, and it sounded an awful lot like her father's. Thus, she steadied herself and clutched her arm tight enough to turn her knuckles white, breathing deeply as she could and counting the seconds in her mind. She even closed her eyes for a moment – but when she closed her eyes she remembered drowning and she shook wildly, so she kept her eyes as open as it was possible and tried to forget what fear meant.

She felt numb and weightless and the shaking still hadn't stopped (maybe it never would.)

The air mattress wasn't comfortable, though, and soon she moved to the chair, still wrapped in the thin blanket. The seat wasn't soft, but it wasn't hard and she found it easy to curl into it. She distracted herself from the questions by counting the cracks in the floor and braiding the ends of her hair – but there were only so many distractions, and her fingers became cramped within twenty minutes.

The wind howled outside, and the window – not big enough to slip through – that showed her what happened outside was close enough for her to peer through. It snowed, fluffy, white flakes falling from a grey sky, and people moved down the streets, angry or scared or desperate or basking in glory; it didn't matter. They were all people, all Gothamites, and no matter how much fun they were having or how much they suffered, they would all die in the span of three months.

If she thought about that, though, she might break down. She couldn't think about that – Bridget absolutely refused to think about that. What kind of monster could kill an _entire_ city? Who could look upon the faces of children and babies and think, _because you live in this city you will die_?

And then came the waterworks. She dropped her head into her lap, covered her eyes with one shaking hand and let the tears flow freely. Her shoulders shook wildly and her sobs echoed around the bare room, loud and clear and raw.

_Stop thinking, just stop thinking, _she told herself, but she couldn't. There was no way to shut off her brain, no way to force the damn tears to stop rolling down her cheeks, angry and sad and frightened and honest.

The door swung open, banging against the wall noisily, and she jumped.

"You come," said a man in a thickly accented voice. When she did not jump up automatically, two other men – Bane's? Crane's? – marched inside, clutching large guns that made her feel utterly weak and completely vulnerable. One of them strode towards her and yanked her up by the arm, and she did not fight him. She wasn't that reckless.

They lead her out of the room and she knew better than to ask any questions. The hallway was filled with offices that either remained offices, or had been turned into sleeping quarters – Bridget refused to call them bedrooms, as they consisted only of small air mattresses and small suitcases for a dresser.

She tried to keep track of the rooms they passed, of the hallways they walked through, but grew confused after a couple of minutes. They moved quickly and silently, unnoticed by the few men and women who inhabited the old city hall.

Their destination was a small, secluded room that Bridget had never seen before, and the men opened the door for her but did not enter with her. She walked timidly, shoulders hunched and head down, feet light yet dragging.

Inside of the room stood Bane, tall and intimidating and absolutely repulsive; his breathing rasped from the mask, steadily. If she was a bit braver, a bit wilder, and a bit stronger, she might've spoken up, cleared her throat. Instead, she stayed hunched over and quiet until he spoke.

"You've made a quick recovery." His voice was gravelly and deep and Bridget bit her tongue, swallowed _hard_ to keep from whimpering in fright. "I thought that the antidote might take longer to make any change. It is, truly, a miracle."

_I'm going to faint_, she thought. He hadn't even _looked_ at her yet and she was already cowering, sinking in on herself and holding her breath.

When he turned she clenched her fists, but did not straighten up. She knew her eyes were still red and swollen from the crying, and was almost ashamed – a realisation hit her though, and she tried to bring a few more tears to her eyes. _If I look weak, maybe he'll pity me_. _If I tremble, maybe, maybe he'll let me go. _

"Tears will get you nowhere," he said harshly, stepping towards her and she recoiled.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, though she didn't know why she was apologising or what she was apologising for. Apologising was a habit of hers, an idiosyncrasy; even if she had done nothing, even if it was not her fault, the words would find their way out of her mouth.

Bane stared at her and she stared at the ground. She could feel his eyes; cold and uncaring and calculating. "Are you afraid?" He asked, amusement tainting his voice.

She didn't answer, grinding her teeth while screaming inside her mind.

"You _will_ answer me."

"Yes," she answered, and her voice trembled but it was not a whisper.

She saw the satisfaction in his eyes and he stepped closer to her. "Do you know," he said, "_why_ you are here?"

_So you can terrorize me?_ "…No."

"One of my brothers made the mistake of pitying you," he explained, tone indifferent but eyes aflame. "He managed to retrieve the antidote to the good doctor's medicine, and slipped it to you, during your first night here. He will not be making the same mistake again."

"Because you talked it out?"

"Because he's dead."

Bridget flinched at his tone, and his words, said a nonverbal prayer.

"The question is now, girl – what are we to do with _you_?"

_Let me go and be with my family until I die?_

"We obviously cannot allow you to _live_ – you contribute nothing to our cause." She closed her eyes, biting her lip. _Tears will get you nowhere, tears will get you nowhere_, she reminded herself. It did no good, however, because the tears came and they fell down her face, making tracks as they dribbled down her chin.

"Do not waste tears on this, girl; you _are_ going to die. It's only the matter of _how_ that is in question –"

She let out a strangled sob as he put his hand – heavy, calloused and strong – near her neck. He stared into her eyes and she tried as hard as she could to look away –

The doors swung open, and Bane did not look away from her, but he spoke.

"I thought I told you," he said, danger in his tone, "that you are not needed here."

"Evidently, I am."

The voice was as even and controlled as Bane's, but a bit higher and more detached, and Bridget recognized it immediately as Crane's. She chewed on her cheek and clenched her fists to control herself; the tears would delight him.

"Do you forget, Dr. Crane, who you are speaking to?"

"No, no. But our agreement was clear – anyone who partakes in my research" – Bridget could hardly contain her scoff – "belongs to me. I can do with her as I see fit."

"And what is it that you see fit?"

"She stays with me – extra help is always in need in the courtroom… and in the research lab." His voice had filled with a sort of adoration that made her skin crawl.

"Perhaps we should ask _her_… would you have me kill you now, girl, or stay alive and do it yourself?"

His tone was cold and the choice was clear to her.

"I'll stay with him," she said quietly.

"You'll start tomorrow," Crane said, turning to leave –

"Fair warning, doctor – should any harm befall you, the girl is as good as dead."

* * *

_Author's Note: _Thank you for the reviews, alerts and favorites! The response I got was really outstanding – so, thank you all so much!

The wait time per chapter will, usually, be around a week or two, because of school, homework, editing and my own schedule.

PS. Who else absolutely adores Richard Siken? Because goddamn his words are freaking _stunning_.


	3. Promotions and Allies

_Summary:_ Fear spreads like wildfire in Gotham during Bane's reign, but the very heart of fear is in Crane's court, where he continues to "improve" upon his toxin. Bridget Avery is unwittingly subjected to these tests when she takes the place of a child during a trial – innocence is lost as unhealthy obsessions form, and a martyr's sacrifice can truly only go so far.

_Trigger warnings: _Mentions of rape, sexism, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, emotional/physical abuse, manipulation and murder. Let me know if I miss anything, because I do not want to hurt anyone. _Update:_ gun violence.

_Note: _I do not own Batman, nor am I affiliated with the movies or characters.

* * *

**Chapter Two**

This is the way the world ends  
Not with a bang but a whimper.  
― T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men **  
**

* * *

Everything that happened after Bane left was a blur. Bridget knew that two of the mercenaries came in, one of them grabbing her arm and holding it tightly, and they took her back to the room, threw her inside, and closed the door.

She'd walked towards the sorry excuse for a bed, and collapsed onto it. A bruise was sprouting on her neck, on her arm. She couldn't see them, but she could feel them. Bane's hand had been stronger than she'd thought. The jeans on her body were still and her movements were restricted and when she landed on the air mattress the only thing that she felt was uncomfortable; she wanted to shimmy out of the goddamned things, but she knew that anyone could walk in the room at any time and she was nothing if not cautious about things like that.

For a moment, she allowed her mind to go blank, closing her eyes and breathing out deeply.

But it only lasted for a moment; her head was filled with thoughts the second that she opened her eyes. Thoughts that made her want to scream, and she was too disoriented to sort them out.

_ If any harm should befall you, the girl is as good as dead_, Bane had warned, and even thinking about it made her feel dizzy. Tethered to Crane, their lives fucking _entwined. _Jesus, it was like some bad YA novel – except Bridget did not plan on becoming lovey-dovey with him anytime soon, or ever, for that matter. There was nothing at all okay about the situation and Bridget was so terrified of it all (Bane and Crane and the court and the jury and the fact that she had to _work for_ Crane and if she was a betting woman she would bet that that work involved her, shirtless). A week ago (at least, she thought it might be a week ago; everything was so unclear – how long had the fear toxin incapacitated her for? How many hours had she been writhing around on that floor?) she'd been safe; or, at least, safer than a lot of people. The only thing that she had to worry about was dodging Ron Sutton's son, who was a bit too handsy for her liking. And food, too; food was always a big deal. Her family took care of the food – they never let her near it for fear that she'd set the whole place aflame – but they only had what they brought and they used it sparingly. Eat one day, eat nothing the next; it was like that "diet" she'd tried out a couple of years back. But, even aside from the food, nothing else was normal. Her parents, who usually bickered and laughed, wore perpetually serious expressions and seldom let each other – or their kids – out of sight. She and her sister shared a sleeping bag and she told her sister fairytales to help her sleep; Maria, her brunette sister, the one person she never got along with, the little girl mischievous glint in her hazel eyes. _If she's hurt or if she's dead _– oh God, did that word burn her mind; it made ashes rise into her mouth and her eyes flooded – _it'll be my fault._

_Oh, God, don't let her be dead. Don't let any of them be dead. _

Tears poured down her face again until she was gasping, until she couldn't cry anymore because there were no tears left.

She didn't sleep much that night, and any time that Bridget _did_ manage to catch a few hours of sleep, she'd awaken with a jolt, feeling very much like she'd been drowning. The utter horror of the entire day and the drowning and the entirety of her situation (_it's your _life, she thought, and her heart stopped for a moment) made her lightheaded. But the tiredness that she felt dug deep into her bones and she could feel the bags under her eyes; and even the moonlight, dim and almost nonexistent, made her eyes sore. _I want to go _home_,_ she thought, and it was true. Home, where her room was too small and her books took up two towering shelves, where she wrote on her laptop until the early hours of the morning, a cup of boiling hot tea next to her, too hot to drink but too good to resist. Home, where her father told bad jokes and cleaned like a maniac, where her mom corrected papers and laughed at bad sitcoms, and where Maria drew pictures so unintelligible that dogs looked like humans. Home, with the kitchen, stocked with food and she was so hungry that her stomach was crying it out, and her fingers were numb with the cold and home had blankets and heat. _I want to go _home_._ And then she was sobbing again, empty and lonely but no tears fell down her cheeks. Her breath came in uneven gasps and, even though the tears had stopped, she still felt as though she was crying. Sometime during the night, she'd moved from the air mattress to the chair, sitting down gently and staring out at Gotham.

The sky was absolutely gorgeous that night, inky with diamonds-like stars filling it (she wondered why the outside was so beautiful, even in the midst of all of the tragedy); and she didn't know the names of the constellations and she never intended on learning them but her breath hitched to think that this was all going to be gone – at least for her and the rest of the population – if someone pulled the trigger on a bomb. It was ludicrous and horrifying and she was terrified of dying and even more terrified of whatever came afterwards and she didn't want to think about it – any of it – so she brushed it out of her mind and counted as many stars as she could until her eyes ached.

She was on the cusp of falling asleep, fatigue taking over her entire body, when she thought it. _Everyone I know is going to die_, she realised, and it was sudden and unexpected but it hurt like a punch in the gut. The people that she hated and the people that she loved and the people that she liked well enough; they were all going to die the same way. Jim Gordon wasn't going to pull any heroics and Batman hadn't been seen in a while, to her knowledge, and her sister was a kid and not a superhero, and her Dad couldn't save the world because she wasn't five anymore and the world wasn't just her kite, stuck up in a tree.

Her eyes were heavy and the world was heavier.

It wasn't just her eyes or the world that were heavy, actually; her entire body ached with exhaustion, and her mind was racing so much that her head pounded. She slumped against the chair, removing her freezing arms from the sleeves of her shirt and then forcing them inside the shirt, so that she felt as though she were in a straight-jacket Her skin was so cold and cracked and calloused – God, the her from a month before would be slightly disgusted. If she could only see herself now; Bridget Avery was many things, and sometimes, she was vain. Incredibly, unbearable vain; not that she thought highly of herself, not that she even thought she was attractive. But she was vain in that her appearance often took precedence over more important things, like friends or family and sometimes school, depending on her mood.

It felt so stupid now. Looks didn't matter anymore; it was just survival that was important. In the warehouse, Ron Sutton's son had told her that she might look less ugly if she ran a brush through her hair, and she'd punched him hard enough in the face to make a trail of blood run down his face, punched him hard enough to make her fingers snap. His father had been horrified, and had the audacity to tell her to learn some manners. "Fuck you," she'd spat out, not caring that her parents were in the same room, or that her younger sister was within hearing distance. "Fuck you, fuck you."

As if her appearance was any of his business; as if the fact that she'd defended herself, the fact that she'd almost screamed _the way I look is not your business, this is sexist, this is what sexism is, the fact that you can smell and look like shit and you can take pride in that because you're a man and it makes you look "strong" but if my hair isn't brushed, it's disgusting and I'm ugly, and I'm a woman so you take the liberty to point it out. _

She didn't know how to throw a punch correctly, however, and her wrist still ached with the impact of the hit, a reminder that she could be tough.

_You aren't tough enough for this_, part of her thought, and she shivered.

And then, for some reason, Bane's voice echoed in her head, _would you have me kill you now, girl, or stay alive and do it yourself? _

_Maybe you should've taken him up on the offer_. And then she slammed her hand into her forehead, angrily; no, that wasn't an option. _Never _again did she want to consider that. So the world was bad and dangerous and she was likely to die horribly within three days – death was permanent and she wanted to live for as long as she could, even if it was only for twelve more hours, even if it was until she was one hundred and three. Life was interesting and breathtaking and sometimes it could be horrible, but overall, she wanted to live.

When the sun rose, she was falling in and out of sleep, turning in the chair as much as was possible. The drowning dreams continued and she jolted awake each time, whimpering or crying, and once with a scream caught in her throat. But the thirty-minutes of fitful sleep didn't exactly rid her of her exhaustion, and in the end, she started crying again, this time with frustration. She beat her hands against the wall, hard, and then felt a jolt of pain shock through her wrist. _Tough. I'm tough._

"Goddammit," she hissed through clenched teeth, wiping at the tears that cascaded down her cheeks.

_If you were on a television show, everyone would hate you_, a part of her thought – and she snickered to herself bitterly. Television shows. She was in serious danger and facing – well, she wasn't quite certain what she was facing, but she knew it was horrible – and she was thinking about how disliked she'd be if she was on a television show.

It was laughable.

The door swung open with a loud bang and Bridget jumped, whirling towards the door wildly, heart thumping like a drum in her chest. In the doorway stood a woman, clearly one of Bane's people and of Indian descent, holding a very small bag at her side, a displeased expression on her face. The woman in the doorway was beautiful but hard-looking, a coldness in her eyes that Bridget recognized solely from seeing having seen it in Bane's. There were no blemishes or scrapes or bruises on her skin, and Bridget felt very aware of the layer of grime that covered her.

"Here," the woman said, eyeing the room – and Bridget – with a look of disgust upon her face. She tossed the bag towards Bridget, ("_Don't throw, I can't catch!_" She would usually shriek, putting her hands in front of her face instinctively, but she didn't this time) who fumbled to catch it and did, with effort. She opened the bag, feeling a wave of disappointment wash over her – inside was just a clean shirt, black and long sleeved. _They aren't gonna make you feel comfortable, stupid_, she thought, but she bit her lips to hold back tears of disappointment that threatened to spill down her cheeks anyway. No food. Maybe she'd die of starvation before the month was over.

"Put it on quickly," the woman advised her, leaning against the doorframe now.

"In front of you?" Bridget asked incredulously, before she could stop herself. Insecurities truly never did go away.

The woman quirked an eyebrow, smirking. "If there's a problem, I'm sure I could get one of the men to come in and keep an eye on you. No promises that all they'll do is keep an eye on you, though."

Bridget blinked, dumbly, and then shook her head. "No," she stammered. "No – I mean, there's no problem – _please_ don't."

The smirk disappeared on the mercenary's face for a moment, but Bridget paid no mind to it; too busy ripping off her shirt as quickly as she could. Fighting the urge to squirm – _oh God this is so awful it's like eighth grade locker rooms all over again _– she tossed the shirt to the ground. The cold air hit her skin and she shivered as she pulled the shirt on over the tangled mess that was her hair.

Then she turned with a somewhat expectant and somewhat nervous look on her face to the woman, who was already half way out the door. Bridget leapt after her, legs moving wildly – like hell was she going to end up standing in the hallway alone with a bunch of men who seemed not to have a problem with hugely violating the rights of every human being. She fell into step with the woman easily, finding her rapid pace – and the fact that no one else was in the hallway – somewhat reassuring.

"You never told me your name," Bridget realised aloud.

The woman stopped, grabbed Bridget's arm tightly and squeezed, then looked at her like she was an idiot, contempt practically dripping from her voice when she answered, "And I don't intend on ever doing that."

She marched forward with her head held high and Bridget found herself biting back tears again. _It's because you're tired, that's the only reason why you want to cry_, she thought, and it was heartening but false. Kindness and questions and niceties and politeness – they had never failed her before. Everyone loved someone with good manners, someone who smiled often, and that was what was – at least, that's what she tried to be in front of people. It worked, though; despite how phony it felt (you could only pretend to like someone for so long until it felt like condescension) it worked. No one disliked her, but no one particularly adored her either. That was all right; it wasn't like she was missing out on much. In a city like Gotham, the fewer friends you had, the better. You never knew what someone was hiding in their closet – metaphorically and literally.

She was still thinking like the Dent Act hadn't been implemented.

They reached the courtroom quickly and the female mercenary was leading her straight towards the chair, towards where she and the others had stood and she felt a jolt of horror, heard Amy's cries, heard the shouts of her family, and the world was spinning so quickly –

"Relax," snapped the woman, grabbing her wrist, placing her fingers directly on her pulse-point, and her hand was warm and calloused but solid, solid and comforting, "it's not you on trial. You're going to be here today, helping out."

"Is that supposed to make me feel _better_?" Bridget rasped, staring up at the podium where Crane usually loomed, calling out "death!" or "exile!" and making a mockery of the entire justice system, and okay, maybe Gotham wasn't the most _just_ of cities but the people were _trying_. But she was distracted because Crane wasn't there yet and what if he was in the back room again, using his toxin – was there any way he could still use it on _her_? She could see the door, and the _people_, and –

"No," she said, and it was half to herself and half to the mercenary, and the woman paid her no mind, dragging her along, long nails digging into her wrist so hard that Bridget felt her knees going weak, felt as though she was in the hospital getting her pulse checked; the woman had the grip of a python. And the woman did not let go until she brought Bridget around to the back of the podium – the door was so close that she felt herself growing weak with fear, and she heard screams in her head that sounded a lot like gulls, and the crashing of the waves and the _rolling_ of the water –

The woman dropped her wrist and walked away, glancing back only once, and Bridget breathed in, quickly.

She closed her eyes, bit her lip. _I don't want to be here. I want to go home_, she thought. And then, _Not this again, not this; you can't cry in front of anyone, you put on enough of a show yesterday when Bane tried to kill you, you can't do that again. You can't show them that you have feelings._

She cracked an eye open for a moment, just a moment, and she took in her surroundings. A skinny, steep staircase led to the top of the podium; the light that poured in from the stained windows was bright and she drank in the sunlight, willing to absorb any light that didn't come from the moon, especially while she was still alone. And alone she was – there were none of Bane's men with her, nor any of Crane's men. The door was surprisingly close, and she wondered, briefly, how quickly she could run towards it, free the people inside and run away. But then she remembered the mercenaries at every corner of the room, and the fact that most of the people Crane had used his toxin on were now crazier than he was.

"Good. You're already here," said a smooth voice from behind her.

_Crane. God, he sounds so smug_.

But he was there, and he was a confirmation that the past few days hadn't been a nightmare. Bridget wasn't quite sure if that was good or bad. _Maybe it's neither, but it is one thing: real. It's real_. And so she opened her eyes, looked at him, and noticed three things immediately. He was more ruffled than he'd been last night, his hair standing nearly on end; he smirked (she wondered if that was his trademark expression, a cold smirk for a cold man, and it made sense); and the third thing, the last thing, was that she felt a surge of rage at the sight of him. He'd taken her, drugged her; and then saved her, all in the span of a week. The sick sort of gratitude that she felt towards him earlier was masked by loathing, deep and hot and it burned through her veins in a way that was unfamiliar. Hatred was foreign. She'd disliked people deeply, even borderline loathed people, and she had, of course, been so utterly disgusted with some people that she called it hate – but this was different. This was cold and hot at the same time, and this burned like a flame under her skin; this was pure and tainted, and the more she saw him the more she wanted to hit him.

_Don't look at him don't look at him, you can't yell and you can't fight and you can't die so don't. Look. At. Him,_ she told herself. She cast her gaze downwards, jaw clenched, angry, angry from her head to her toe, but unable to speak and unable to get away.

"How did you sleep last night, Miss….?"

His voice was disinterested, and he wasn't paying her any mind, adjusting the watch – which said it was 8AM – on his wrist and listening to the low, rumbling voices of his jury.

"Avery. Bridget Avery," she replied, trying to mask the bite in her words. He didn't know her name, and it infuriated her. After what he did, he should at least have known her name already. "And I slept like a baby."

"It can get started, now," he said, more to himself than to her, and Bridget didn't look at him when he spoke, didn't even flinch. She knew he was smirking still, though; she could almost hear it in his voice. He brushed past her, grazing her side as he did. She jerked to the side quickly, standing still and chewing on her cheek.

_Where does he want me to go? What does he want me to do? _

He let out an expectant sigh, and she looked up. He stood on the shoddily crafted stairs, a look of annoyance on his face.

"Why are you still here?" He snarled, and a startled noise burst from her lips.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, and she looked at the floor and bit at her lips. "But where do you want me to go?"

"Did I not tell you?" He sneered, and Bridget flinched at his tone, cold and hard like ice. "You're a part of the jury, Miss Avery. I suggest you hurry along and join them before they grow any rowdier. Sometimes, they don't even realise they've killed someone."

Her breath hitched, and she was caught between wanting to run and wanting to scream and wanting to cry; instead, she turned on her heel, walking as quickly as she could away from him, towards the jury. They seemed to be composed of wolves, wearing violently red scarves in various states of tattered-ness; and already, fights were breaking out among them. There seemed to be more people among them now than there'd been during… during the last "trial" she'd witnessed.

She saw the female mercenary from before, the woman, the one who'd taken her to Crane. The mercenary stood alone, arms folded, eyes taking in the fight around her. She looked as though she were strategizing. She caught sight of Bridget – Bridget could tell from the way her eyes narrowed, focusing on her the way a lion did to a deer – and looked away, slowly.

Bridget stepped into the crowd of people, wilder now than they had been seconds before, ducking away from grabby hands with skill she didn't know she possessed, dodging around the fray of a fist-fight or a knife fight with her head down and her heart racing. She clenched her fist, and then winced – her wrist had done more than just twinge. It must've been sprained, or twisted, because it didn't hurt as much as a fracture did, and it certainly wasn't broken.

She spotted Victor Zsasz – she might not have been born and raised in Gotham, but he'd killed enough people (usually young women) for her to be equal parts terrified and filled with fury at the sight of him – and she moved, very swiftly, in the opposite direction. The tally marks on his skin were enough to make her feel like she might throw up. One for each victim, one for each life. She'd only been a little girl when she'd caught her parents watching the news, watching a newscaster talking about how Zsasz was at large again, and they'd showed a picture of him, tally-mark scars on his skin and an vacant look in his sharp eyes, and she hadn't remembered it until the moment that she saw him. He looked old.

In the end, she stood near an elderly man, eyes milky and white and blind but with fury in every wrinkle on his face, and a young, livid looking woman.

"You're the girl from Monday, aren't you?" she asked Bridget, vehemence dancing in her eyes. Her blonde hair was limp and dried out, and there was a remainder of what looked to be black paint circling her eyes. "The one that stopped the Judge from doin' what he wanted?"

"I – I guess," Bridget replied, quietly.

The woman shook her head, slowly, heat and hate flickering in her eyes, which were otherwise empty and blue, framed by long, thick eyelashes. "Dumb bitch," she scoffed.

Bridget looked away, too exhausted to be offended, and played with the sleeve of her shirt miserably. The woman did not speak to her again.

Bridget turned her gaze to the podium, where Crane was now seated, eyes scanning the jury. They rested on her for a half-second, and a look of amusement crossed his face, before he continued to stare at the monstrous crowd, which moved violently, like a wave. Everyone was so eager for blood, for revenge, and she felt completely sickened. What the hell had these people lived through to make them want to send the rich and the powerful to their deaths? She'd never been in the Narrows for long periods of time – once or twice to drive her sister's friends home, to bring homework to kids in her class who were absent and asked her to – and from what she'd witnessed, it was awful. Graffiti and dangerous looking people, gunshots and screams and children playing in dirty gutters, starving dogs tied to poles, for closure signs on rotting buildings, and that wasn't even the worst of it. But then, the last time she'd been in the Narrows was just after the Dent Act had been instilled; it _had_ to be better now.

But maybe it wasn't.

"_Order_!" Crane barked, banging the gavel down with all of the force he could exert, causing her to jump and the old man next to her made a slight grunting noise.

What happened next made her feel like she'd been punched in the gut; in swept three mercenaries, clutching at the jacket of a struggling, ginger haired man. He was tall, taller than the mercenaries, at least; and he was so dirtied that Bridget figured he'd been waiting to be sentenced for a very long time. He wore a tweed suit underneath the jacket, and his shoes were scuffed and muddied but clearly expensive underneath it all.

They forced the man down into the chair, one mercenary keeping his hand on the man's shoulder forcefully. Bridget craned her neck to get a better look, and saw that she didn't recognize that man's face; then again, the only Gotham celebrity that she knew on sight was Bruce Wayne, and he hadn't left his mansion in eight years.

"Colin West," Crane said, voice loud and cracking and so utterly uninterested that Bridget shivered despite herself, "you are here today to pay for crimes against the people of Gotham."

"What crimes would those be?" Colin West shouted, and there was a fire in his words. The woman next to her made a snarling noise, and Bridget looked at her; her lips were curled back in fury, eyes burning brighter than a flame. She looked like a wild animal, and Bridget focused on her, instead of the way that the room was spinning, the way that she could almost hear the past, the way that she could feel the clamminess of Amy's hands –

_Stop_.

"It doesn't matter," Crane drawled, and Bridget felt a chill running up her spine ("she's just a little girl, please, take me instead," she'd panted, and her head ached, ached and pounded and the world spun wildly). "Your guilt has already been proven. This is a sentencing hearing, nothing more."

Mr. West let out a frustrated noise, and the jury tittered. In fact, the blonde woman next to her was half giggling, half shrieking with joy. And everyone else… they were laughing – why were they _laughing_? Bridget would've felt disgusted, if she wasn't too busy reminding herself to breathe.

"Someone's got to stop this," she mumbled, and to her relief, the animalistic woman next to her didn't hear her words. The woman didn't wear a red scarf, like the rest of Bane's army, but she did seem to be incredibly enthusiastic about the liberation, and was, in fact, already screaming for the man to be sentenced to death.

The blind man next to her grunted again, and Bridget looked to him. Anger written in every line on his face, and the type of old that made his age indiscernible, she was confused as to why, exactly, he was in the middle of all of it. _What are you doing here?_ She wanted to ask. He looked like the grandfather type, really; he looked almost exactly like her great-grandfather if you didn't notice all of the fury. He was quite tall, taller than most, and he towered over Bridget, even with his back hunched so. He didn't have a red scarf; he was clad in a plaid, flannel jacket, the type of jacket that her great-aunt wore. The type of jacket that Bridget wanted to wrap herself up in – the courtroom was frigidly cold, and even Crane, sitting atop of the pile of garbage (she could, if she was less distracted, less scared, talk about the symbolism), wore layers of clothing.

"How can you condone this?" She asked, her voice low and her tone incredulous. The old man didn't answer, but his ear twitched; he had heard her question.

It was enough.

Crane banged his gavel, shouted, "order!" and everything quieted again.

"Well, Mr. West," he said, and his voice was sarcastic and bored and the lack of emotion behind it made it bone-chillingly scary, "what'll it be? Death – " he paused to let the mob react; but Bridget could hardly hear anything, counting her breaths and closing her eyes, "or exile?"

"DEATH!" The jury screamed at once, and the woman next to her screamed the loudest. It was a symphony of wrongness, and her heart was leaping in her chest, her breathing slipping slowly.

Bravery was hard, and life was hard, and she _couldn't do it_.

"DEATH!"

"No way in hell am I going out onto that ice," shouted Colin West, and Bridget felt her breath catch in her throat, felt panic and fear numb her entire body.

"So – death, then?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I choose death."

"_NO_!" She shrieked, high-pitched and nearly breathless. She wasn't heard over the cheering, the clapping, and the sounds of _joy_. If Crane had sentenced her to death yesterday, would people clap this loud? If little Amy had been killed, had been exiled, would they cheer?

The very second that Crane motioned to the mercenary nearest to Colin West, Bridget threw herself forwards. It was a knee-jerk reaction, and she wasn't entirely sure what she was doing when she did it. For a moment, she felt calloused, cold hands grabbing her hand, but she moved forward so violently that she slipped out of their grasp. The jury didn't part for her; she parted them. People didn't move out of her way, and somehow, she managed to reach Colin West before the mercenary pulled the trigger.

The mercenary did not listen to her screaming, and, with an all-over calmness, pulled the trigger.

Colin West, or what used to be Colin West, fell to the ground. Blood pooled on the ground around his body, and she felt her knees give out but did not feel the fall.

More cheering; except from her. She screamed, strangled and violent and _loud_, but lost among the noise of the jury. The room spun, and everything from the last time she'd been there – Amy, her dad, her sister, Ron Sutton (that arrogant, entitled _asshole_) – flashed before her eyes. She put her hands to her face, covered her eyes and her mouth as choked, broken sobs fell from her.

_Oh God_, she thought. _Oh God oh God oh God_.

She couldn't feel anything, nothing at all; there was something in her throat that wanting to claw its way out and it might've been her heart and it might've been vomit, and the only thing that she felt at all was like she'd been punched in the gut. She doubled over on the cold ground, as blood streamed from the fatal wound on the head of a dead stranger, and she began screaming as loudly as she could. And no one noticed.

But the screams didn't stop, not even when Crane banged his gavel, not when the court quieted, not when someone tried to pry her up. She clutched at the ground, so hard that her nails cracked and her fingertips scraped, leaving small, bloody scratch marks on the cold flooring. She felt no pain in her fingers, no pain in her body, no pain at all, despite knowing that she should. Completely numb, right down into her core – and her screaming still echoed around the courtroom, no other sound being uttered at all. Eerily silent.

The blood trailed close enough to her to lick at her fingertips, and it was hot and smelled metallic, and she wanted to move away from it but she couldn't move, she was frozen, completely frozen, and now there was blood on her hands and on her new shirt, and there was a dead man close enough to her that his blood was on her. The screams didn't die down as time passed, though someone – one of the mercenaries – managed to lift her from the ground, his hold on her tight and unforgiving and, above all else, cruel. _This isn't real, this isn't happening, this can't be real_.

She thrashed in the arms of the mercenary, kicked at his legs, bit at the hand that he attempted to place over her mouth – a sick sort of satisfaction washed over her when she tasted his blood in her mouth. He did not let her go. She fought harder, but she wasn't strong enough. Her limbs ached, and she'd barely done anything at all, except for incessant shrieking and writhing. She'd never been an adept fighter, never even been passable, really. And the mercenary was trained and hardened, and he carried her like a child, walking as if she weighed nothing, when she knew that to be false.

"Andrea Powell will now appear…" Crane drawled, scarce heard in Bridget's ringing ears. She tuned out reality, focused on her head.

Time passed in jolts and in blurs.

The jury – once deadly quiet – began cheering again. Someone called out, "Death!"

The crowd echoed the word, "death, death, death!"

Crane banged his gavel, spoke words that Bridget couldn't hear in the haze and the horror of her mind.

A gunshot rang out.

Bridget felt her stomach drop – had Colin West not been enough for them? _You said they were like wolves, before, _she reminded herself, _and a wolf is always hungry for more._

She felt as though she might be sick.

She bit at the mercenary one more, futile time, before he threw her to the ground, pointing his gun at her head. She suppressed the urge to whimper, and instead met his eyes, trying to throw him off guard with a glare – it worked on television all the time. He didn't respond, and he didn't move his gun.

"That's not necessary," said Crane in a drawl, and Bridget looked towards him, incredulity ingrained in her pale face, and she wondered how he'd gotten to them so quickly. Time was passing so oddly. But he hadn't moved at all, really, just climbed down the uneven stairs; it was the mercenary and her who had moved. The man had carried her all the way to the back of Crane's… Crane's pile of _garbage_. "Leave," he said, gesturing for the mercenary to go. He did, albeit slowly, casting a heated, furtive glance at her before marching away.

Silence washed over them, and she looked at him with very wide eyes. Neither of them spoke for a moment, and she realised, with a wash of disgust, that he would be very handsome if he wasn't so horrible.

"That was quite the show," he said evenly, breaking the silence, and for once, he sound vaguely interested. Reverence – not for her – flashed in his eyes. It was for fear, she knew. _If fear was a religion he would be the Messiah_, she thought trembling despite herself.

She could barely form thoughts, let alone words, and when she did speak she didn't _intend_ on it.

"You're disgusting," she whispered, and the words on her tongue were braver than she felt and her voice wavered despite her best efforts. He smirked and she wanted more than anything to claw the smug look right off his face.

"Don't forget who saved you," he practically purred, a warning in his collected voice.

_After what you did to me, not even _that_ can make me grateful to you_.

She was on the ground, tear tracks like rain on a window on her freckled face and he was standing, the very definition of the word power, and she hoped, desperately, that it wasn't symbolic.

"I believe there's a better spot for you than in the jury," he said, and she looked at him, half expectant and half dreading what he would say next.

"Where would that be?" she croaked, when Crane did not continue. The blood on her hands had almost dried, and now it was in her skin, stuck in her fingerprints. There was a stranger's blood covering her skin. A stranger who had died, minutes before. A stranger, but a man, and probably an innocent.

_Two strangers, actually,_ she reminded herself.

She forced herself not to think about it. She could save that pain, that guilt for later; but now, she needed to focus. Crane seemed to be the type of person that you were required to listen to closely whenever he spoke, and she intended on doing just that – even if it required numbing herself. Her mind was sometimes the best kind of anesthetic.

"You seem to have a great sense of morality; you've interfered twice already," he sounded exasperated, and she swallowed, looked at his feet, "maybe you should see what it's like."

"What it's like to _what_?" She asked through gritted teeth.

"What it's like to be almost completely in charge of someone else's fate."

The world stopped.

"No," she sputtered. "No, I won't – I _won't_. I _won't_."

"You will." His voice was so apathetic that it stung.

"You can't make me," she responded, and she was briefly reminded of being a little girl, not wanting to put away the dishes, not wanting to clean up her toys – had she honestly thought that was important once?

He smirked, and she met his eyes for a second.

"You'll start tomorrow," he said.

_I'm tired of hearing that_, she thought. Bridget didn't want to _start_ anything; not tomorrow and not the next day, not next month or in the next decade. She didn't like being controlled; she didn't like being told what to do, or when she would do it.

"I _won't_," she argued, one last time, but he was already walking away, moving swiftly up those crooked stairs with more grace than she'd ever mustered.

When he was out of hearing distance, she let out a small, muffled shriek, pressing her bloodied hands to her mouth.

_I am more than a captive._

_I am more than a captive._

_I am more than a captive._

The thought wasn't reassuring, and, anyway, it wasn't true; all she was now was a prisoner. The ground was cold and unforgiving and hard and again, she longed for home. But the tragedy was she didn't have one anymore – home was where her mother was, where her father laughed and her sister started petty arguments. Home wasn't just walls and furniture and insulation, it was the people inside, and God only knew where they were now. And Crane and his order, the fact that she would be handing out sentences to people, giving them death. She felt her stomach flip. You_ have to _kill_ people_, she realised, and a wash of something cold and something unfamiliar ran down her spine.

Maybe she didn't, though; exile was cruel and, from what she heard, making it to safety wasn't common, but it was kinder than letting someone die without a chance of escape. Besides, there was still a large possibility that the rumors she heard about what happened to the people who were exiled weren't true; Beth, who usually knew everything about everyone, hadn't told her that part. Veronica had known nothing about it either, with those three seconds that she'd spoken to her before being dragged away from her friend by Ron Sutton, and she knew more about the lives of people in Gotham than Beth and Bridget combined.

_You can do this_, she thought, and it didn't sound corny. _You can help_.

She couldn't help Colin West, though.

Or the woman, Andrea something or other.

Her arms involuntarily wrapped around her middle, and a dry sob slipped out of her. It didn't echo the way her sobbing did in her almost-bare room, and the ground in the courtroom was a lot colder than the ground in her room.

Still, she did not get up from the ground for a long time.

She sobbed harder as time passed, pulling at her hair violently and screeched into her fist, which she balled up and bit on. Her hand tasted metallic, and she gagged, spitting and then crying louder.

_Moron moron moron_.

_Useless moron._

The ground was hard and unforgiving and she felt her back aching against the rigidness of it, but she didn't move, or adjust herself. No, she deserved this. Somehow, she deserved this. For not reaching Colin West in time, for not being braver, for thinking that her small protest would be significant at all.

The female mercenary came back for her, eventually, looked at her with something that was somehow on fire and frozen at the same time in her eyes, and spoke with a venomous tone, "You little idiot."

Bridget knew better than to respond, and instead eyed the ground with an even stare.

"Get up," the mercenary snapped, and Bridget did, tripping over herself as she attempted to move more quickly. This woman scared her – not that that was difficult to do, but it was true. The female mercenary didn't flinch, didn't cower, and above all, had the robotic, unreadable type of personality that made Bridget uncomfortable.

The woman moved forward, and Bridget followed without having to ask if she was supposed to. The command was unspoken.

_Command? Why the hell does someone get to _command_ me?_

_Because, _she reminded herself, looking at the ground as she followed the mercenary, _I'm a prisoner and I'm scared, and besides, I haven't got any idea what I'm doing_.

The woman led her back up the stairs, practically jogging, and Bridget didn't realise they were moving so quickly until they reached the doorway of her bedroom. Her eyes drooped, and she felt – numbed. Disconnected. Almost as if nothing was wrong but everything was wrong at the same time.

"Don't make me," she said quietly, but the mercenary opened the door to the room anyway and nudged her back, not unkindly. Bridget moved, dumbly, into the room, and then retched. Smelled like vomit.

"What the hell did you do in here?" asked the mercenary, and Bridget didn't answer. Words wouldn't come, and anyway, she didn't really remember. Everything was so fuzzy and unclear. She felt weightless, dreamy. Like nothing was real.

"Listen, girl," the mercenary said with a brittle tone in her voice. She was cut off by Bridget's sudden sob.

_There's a woman who is also a mercenary, standing in my cage and watching me cry. _

She sobbed harder, burying her face in her bloodied hands. She had never seen someone die before. Not like that, not ever. She'd seen her uncle's body at a wake, and she'd looked away, almost horrified, and she'd dragged her mother outside and they sat in the car, both silent, a look of understanding on her mother's freckled face. Later, she'd felt guilty, and selfish, and childlike all at once.

But this – this was different. There – there weren't _words_ for what she was feeling, there wasn't any way to explain what she'd seen. But utterly useless – that described some of it, or at least what the selfish part of her was feeling.

She sobbed, again.

_I want to go home_, she wanted to say, but she didn't trust this woman, not fully, didn't trust the way the woman looked at her, like she was studying her. The woman was a killer, for God's sake. And a part of Bane's army, and probably so many more things that Bridget couldn't name. Liar, traitor, thief – who knew what else the woman had done? But the pain and the exhaustion made it too hard to stop crying, and the woman wasn't saying anything, and so Bridget sobbed on.

The man had died. He'd been shot. She couldn't stop it.

She couldn't stop it.

There was a dead man and she'd tried to save him but it hadn't been enough and now his blood was on her shirt and on the floor in the courtroom and on her hands, and there was something heavy in the pit of her stomach, something cracking in her heart.

And it was her fault because she. Couldn't. Stop. It.

He had to have had a wife, a family, maybe a couple of kids – he looked like that type of guy. Or, he used to look like that type of guy. From what she'd seen. God – Goddammit, she didn't even _know_ him. He could've been horrible, could've been cruel.

_But he didn't deserve that_, she thought, and then she wailed.

Bridget collapsed onto her knees, shoved her head into her lap, and screamed, loud and muffled and long.

What if he did have a family? What if they were waiting for him, somewhere – or worse, what if they were going to be sentenced, too? What if they were all crying, all heartbroken, all scared that they would be next?

_God_, what if Crane sentenced them all to death, too?

She realised, abruptly, that she could help them, if they _did_ exist. She wouldn't let them choose death – she'd give them exile. She'd give them a chance to make it away from everything, to escape.

Her sobbing subsided, slowly, and she lifted her head from her lap.

"You won't survive this," the woman whispered to herself, staring at nothing, and Bridget looked at her, lip quivering.

And then the mercenary turned, slowly, so that she didn't face Bridget. "If you're going to keep acting up the way you did today," she spoke, "you're going to need to learn how to take care of yourself."

"I can take care of myself," Bridget snapped.

The woman quirked a sculpted eyebrow. "The way you fought made you look like an child trying to defend herself against an angry dog," she retorted. Bridget flinched at the visual, and the woman continued. "Look, it's an offer – take it or leave it. Either way, I'll be here again tomorrow to bring you to the – to the _Judge_," she looked as though she wanted to roll her eyes, "Fair warning; he doesn't intend on keeping you here long. If I were you, I'd enjoy what little privacy I had for as long as it lasts."

Bridget felt her blood run cold (_if I'm not here, where will I be?_), before nodding. "I – I – thanks," she stuttered. "Thank you for the heads up."

"You'll have something to eat tonight," the woman added thoughtfully. "And I'll make sure there's a clean shirt for you."

"Why are you telling me this?"

The woman didn't respond.

"I mean, not to be rude, but – why?"

The woman shrugged, eyes flashing with sadness, momentarily. "We all have reasons for doing things we know that we shouldn't. Enjoy your night, Miss Avery."

She marched out, closed the door, and left Bridget with a tearstained face and her thoughts.

* * *

_Author's Note_: Ah, I live!

You guys, I am so sorry this took me so long. I got caught up in the agonizing hell that is exams, but I'm back now, and updates are definitely going to be more frequent (probably)! Thank you all for the reviews and the favourites and the alerts – I'm so freaking glad you think it's good (and creepy. The fact that you think it's creepy makes me happy inside). I'm really curious as to how you feel about Bridget, because, even though I am she and she is me (we are one), I think she's still a bit braver than I am. Oops.

You guys can follow me on Tumblr if you want. pandorasocks, same as my pen-name. Lots of feelings about art and music and Batman!

Also, I was the only one who edited the ending of this, really (shoutout to Brooke and Maggie for proofing some of it), so any mistakes are completely mine.


	4. Changes in Scenery

_Trigger warnings: _Mentions of rape, sexism, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, emotional/physical abuse, manipulation and murder, and gun violence.

* * *

**Chapter Three**

'I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say

'whom I am constantly shocking'

— Pictures of the Gone World, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

* * *

It was raining. The drops pelted against the small window, beating a steady rhythm against it. The noise was familiar enough to almost comfort her.

Almost.

Bridget Avery was trembling and exhausted and clutching desperately at the moth-eaten sheets, attempting to squeeze some warmth from them. She wasn't even cold; just _terrified_. Too terrified to sleep, too terrified to think clearly. She'd been happy, momentarily – the chance to save people from death, to give them exile instead – but the thought of Colin West sucked the happiness from her quickly and left a sinking, dark feeling in the pit of her stomach. Like she'd eaten something bad, or swallowed something whole.

She shook her head and put her hands over her eyes. She didn't cry, even though she felt as though she could.

Her breathing was unsteady and her stomach growled. The mercenary had brought her food, but a pathetically small amount – two pieces of toast and a warm juice box.

It would be impossible to sleep if her stomach didn't stop feeling so empty. She knew that from experience.

But sleep did come, eventually, and she didn't so much welcome it so much as drown in it, slowly. Her mind was empty of dreams and thoughts and pain, though the dreamlessness did not last long.

When the nightmare came, it felt dark and wrong, and in the dream she was running through the hallways in City Hall, the ones that she barely could navigate even in a dream, even in her own mind. There were screams, loud and angry and scared, coming from behind her, tearing after her and making her ears ache. The hallways were barren; not a single soul was in sight, just her and whatever – or _whoever_ – was making that God-awful noise. She wanted, desperately, to throw her hands over her ears, but the way her arms were steadying her when she made a sharp turn and the way she'd let them take the force of the blow whenever she nearly ran straight into a wall made it impractical. She didn't stop running, not even when her heart felt as though it was going to give out; and she didn't wake up.

The voices came, soon, all melded together, mechanical and harsh, even and controlled; she didn't know what they were saying but she heard them, swirling together, and getting louder, and louder, and –

They abruptly stopped just as she ran straight into something – no, some_one_ – and she looked up, apology on her lips, feeling relieved – maybe they could help her, maybe they could stop the noises –

Colin West's body – bloodied and pale and too decayed (not that she noticed, not with the horror that fell upon her) – was standing in front of her, and his eyes were terrifyingly _empty_, but awake, and open, and she shrieked, both in the dream and in her small, cramped room. She didn't wake up, and his hands – icy and _white_ – snaked around her wrist, and she let out a choked, terrified noise, trying to recoil and failing, and his grip on her wrist tightened significantly and she shrieked in pain.

And then he leaned towards her, carefully, head tilted like he was going to _kiss _her, and she felt a flash of horror and revulsion and tried to shove him away, but his mouth wasn't going for her lips, his mouth was at her ears and she'd never had a more vivid dream, because she could smell the death on his breath.

He said something, something low and whispered that Bridget hadn't heard, and she said, _what_?

The dream flashed – violently – and all in a second, it wasn't Colin West, it was Crane, and she couldn't see his face but she knew it was him, and there was terror building in her stomach and those words – _do you like my mask?_ – filled her ears, and suddenly she wasn't on solid ground anymore, she was drowning, sinking fast, waves crashing over her head and the current tugging her under and she opened her mouth –

She woke up screaming.

Her breathing was erratic and her hair was in her mouth and her legs were tangled in the blankets and she was already forgetting what she'd dreamt. Her entire body shook, and she let out a choked, sob-like noise, curling her legs up under her chin quickly. She rocked herself back and forth, tangling her hands through her hair and taking breaths as deeply as she could. The second that tears began rolling down her cheeks, she clenched her teeth together and _screamed_ in exasperation –

She could barely feel anything but what she did feel made her want to die.

_This is not what life is supposed to be like_, she thought desperately, and she screamed again, louder this time, and it burned her throat but it felt good, it felt like a release –

And then it didn't.

She was alone and pathetically screaming in a room.

_Stupid girl_, part of her thought and she tugged on her own hair as hard as she could.

Not for the first time, she felt crushingly brainless. Screaming did not do much to help her situation. If anything, it would just lead to one of Bane's men – or Crane's – walking into the room and finding her the most vulnerable that anyone could ever be; weak and defenseless and completely childlike, she would be incredibly easy to take advantage of.

"No one is going to hurt me," she said. She repeated herself several times, and each time, it sounded more and more like the lie that it was.

But it was enough to calm her down.

Her breathing evened out, and she smoothed her hair down with her trembling hands. _Always shaking_, she thought, and it confused her – she'd always thought that, given a horrible situation, she'd be brave. She used to think that she'd be on the front-lines defending innocents and throwing bad guys in jail. She had dreams about leading the perfect rebellion, with no deaths and no pain and no suffering.

She had thought it would be _easy_.

She didn't think she'd be the one to hide in a warehouse with her family and an assortment of people that she barely knew. She had never thought that she would be the terrified captive, the picture of a damsel in distress, surviving solely because of the actions of a criminal who was the reason she was being held captive to begin with.

_Well, you were wrong_. She scoffed at herself, gently untangling her legs from the blankets.

She stood, somewhat unsteadily, and paced slowly. Her mind was working quickly, and, for the first time since she'd been taken, she felt a little like her old self. Rationalizing and thinking – those were the two things that she liked to pretend she was good at, back when everything was normal. The first thing she needed to do – desperately – was learn to defend herself. The mercenary had told her yesterday that she would teach her; she hadn't given a specific time, or any indication of when, exactly, this teaching would happen. Bridget hoped that it would be soon; yesterday's horror show had left her bruised and sore. It made her feel _murderous_, made her want to wring Crane's neck –

Bane's threats rang in her ears momentarily (_if any harm should befall you, the girl is as good as dead_), before she snapped her eyes shut and fell backwards –

– And she _breathed_.

The air came in patchily and she shoved her head between her legs and took in heaving gulps of air like a fish out of water. _Breathebreathe breathe_, she told herself and she was trembling again, and cold, too. She would've wrapped the blanket around herself if she could've moved.

_Count to ten_, she told herself, because that's what her mother used to tell her to do when life became too hard, _count to ten and it'll all go away. _

One. Two. Three.

She looked towards the window.

Fourfivesixseven.

It was still raining.

Eight.

Nothing was any better.

She didn't count past nine.

(-)

It was two hours later when the knock sounded, loud and somehow tentative.

Bridget had burrowed into the armchair by the window again, the blanket wrapped around her tightly. Her head rested against the glass and she watched with mild interest as the night sky twinkled dully with stars. The stars seemed less magnificent than they had before.

She made a small noise of acknowledgement at the knock – her mouth refused to form words, apparently, and a panicked feeling built inside of her – and the door opened. Bridget stared towards it with wide eyes.

The panic disappeared, and in its place came relief. Because it was only the woman (the _mercenary_) that was there and Bridget gave a sigh. It took her only a minute to realise that something was wrong, for the woman wasn't alone. Behind her stood another two of Bane's people – men, with their red scarves wrapped around their throats like nooses – and there was no kindness on the face of her possible ally. She looked so utterly cold and angry and eternal that Bridget felt her blood turn to ice.

"Follow me," the woman said coldly, and Bridget looked as though she'd been slapped – but she walked towards the woman, and gave her a pathetic, confused look. They began walking down the hallway, and the door of the small, cell-like room slammed shut behind them. She stayed behind the woman with her head down, gnawing on her lip and twining her fingers together. Had this been what the mercenary had meant by, "he intends on moving you soon"? Had this been why the woman had told her to enjoy her privacy while she still could? Or were they merely taking her to court again? She wanted neither to happen. She hoped desperately that the triggerman would blow the bomb, and that would be the end of it.

_Don't be so selfish. You don't really want that_.

Automatic disgust with herself began to settle in, and Bridget wished that she could run back into the small, prison-like room and dive under the pitiable blankets and sleep away what remained of her life.

One of the men put his hand on her, and she flinched. He didn't remove his hand, and it stayed wrapped around her arm for the entire walk and she felt weighed down, somehow.

The halls were busy and cluttered with the criminals and madmen and rebels and soldiers that had just awoken. She could see, now, why the mercenary hadn't come for her alone – Bridget could've easily run away if it was simply one of them. It would've been all too easy to fade into the crowd.

She wondered what would happen if she did run.

She wasn't fast – that was the first problem. The second was that the hallways were filled with mercenaries and serial killers and rapists and other assortments of people that made things go bump in the night. And there were guards stationed at every exit with guns in their hands and calm, hard faces. Even if it was only her mercenary friend (is that what they were – friends?), she wouldn't stand a chance. Her escape would be stopped by a bullet.

She didn't want to die – especially not like that.

Running was not an option.

Bridget snapped back to reality, looked towards her mercenary friend.

The woman mercenary didn't look back at her, but it didn't bother Bridget; it was to keep up appearances, she assumed. Bridget wasn't stupid. She knew that there was no way that the woman would be allowed to live if word got out that she'd helped her.

Bane had already killed the unnamed mercenary that had given her the antidote; and Bridget shuddered to think what would happen to the mercenaryif Bane found out the woman was helping her.

They walked quickly and the air was cold. Bridget slipped her sleeves down so that they covered her hands, but the chill had already settled deep in her bones. It was the type of cold that refused to be ignored, the kind that could've come from the inside or the outside. Bridget spotted the old man from the day before; and, though he was blind, she could've sworn he'd winked at her.

An odd chill that was not from the cold ran up her spine and settled there.

She didn't look around much; besides, each time she did look, she saw something she wished she hadn't seen at all. A little boy, who looked to be no older than eight years old, stood crying with a red faced, shouting man. A woman sat on the floor with a bloodied nose, sobbing into her hands. And a man lay on the ground, badly beaten and barely breathing. Bridget hadn't thought that it would be like that – so violent and horrible and raw. There were no words that fit, nothing that captured it – she felt like she was walking through a pre-Batman, pre-Dent Act version of the Narrows.

No one tried to help her.

She was inexplicably glad about that.

The hallways grew darker and drearier, and with every step they took, Bridget felt her spirits sinking further and further down.

They went up flights of stairs, each footstep echoing around the building – the further up they went, the emptier the halls became. In fact, when they reached the final hallway, it was utterly barren. There was only one door, big and closed and daunting. The last time that she'd been brought before a door, a terrorist had attempted to snap her neck. She trembled even more at the thought, and the mercenary who'd had his hand on her stepped forward and gave a hard, loud knock on the door.

It took a moment, but the door opened.

And there stood Crane.

Just as smug as always, but more dishevelled – his hair stood on end and his eyes were maniacal. He wasn't bundled up as much, clad in just a suit, dirty and ripped but not as repulsive as some of the clothes that she'd seen people wearing. If she remembered correctly, when she was in the warehouse, one of her father's coworkers paraded around with a blood stain dragging down the front of his shirt – she could never manage to look at him without retching.

She noticed that Crane looked a lot weaker without the overcoat, the one that made him look even more like his alias – the straw that stuck out of the tears in the fabric would've been funny if it didn't terrify her. Bridget didn't remember much before drowning, but she did know how fucking horrifying his mask was. How horrifying _Scarecrow_ was.

And the drowning – that had been horrifying, too.

She saw it all again – flashes of it. The waves, turbulent and rough, tossing her around like a doll – the lack of air, the feeling that her lungs were going to explode – and the fighting, her kicking limbs, the total uselessness of it, because she had been _drowning_, she was going to _die_ –

She felt her mouth grow dry and struggled to keep her breathing even.

He was addicted to fear – he had _studied_ it, created a drug that made you experience your worst fears, for God's sake – and she would bet that he knew more about fear than anyone else. Crane would know if she was afraid, and right now, she was more afraid than anything else, and he had to know. Bridget looked up, testing her theory – he was looking at her like she was something to devour. She looked down, closed her eyes for a moment.

The only thing that she felt was afraid.

_Don't let it show_, she told herself. It wasn't that easy, though, and she still trembled, still didn't meet his eyes.

"Thank you," he said to the mercenaries. There was no true gratitude in his tone; he even condescended people who could snap his neck like a toothpick. Bane's warning flashed through her mind (and the chorus of _if Crane dies I die_ started up in her head), and Bridget felt rather like a caged bird. There was no way out.

The mercenaries left without Crane having to tell them to, their steps echoing down the long hallway, and he spoke directly to her. "Make yourself at home, Miss Avery."

She did not miss the sarcasm in his voice but she did ignore it. She brushed past him with a quiet, murmured, "Excuse me."

He closed the door behind them and it sounded with a quiet but final _thump_ and Bridget wanted to start screaming. _Don't speak to me, don't speak to me, please, just _go away, _I don't know what I'll do if you speak to me_ –

He did not speak to her, but she didn't breathe easily until he disappeared behind a door (and that one closed too, but it like a warning and she wanted to wince), and she looked around the apartment with darting eyes.

It was dingy and badly lit and overall it was an absolute _dump_, but she doubted it had been like that before Bane's so called revolution. She walked around a bit, quietly, grateful for the distraction; the kitchen was impeccably clean and almost completely devoid of any food. State of the art cooking equipment though, the type of thing her little sister would've _ooh_-ed and _ahh_-ed at. There was food in the fridge, but no meat, nothing colourful and nothing that Bridget found interesting enough to further investigate. The bathroom was neat and tidy and the only mirror was cracked and hung precariously from the wall. Again, she wondered if it had been like that before Crane had inhabited the apartment. She was tempted to look at her reflection, but decided against it. No, she felt awful enough.

She walked back into the kitchen and then into the living room. It was plainly decorated, to put it nicely, but it had the aura of a house that had once been lovely. There was a small end table with a pretty little lamp. The couch – which was small and but cute. It was dark leather, and not cracked leather, either. The walls were painted a cream colour, and Bridget noticed nails sticking out from the walls where paintings or pictures had once hung. The only colour in the room was red – and not of the pleasant, kitchen-y sort. The red came from bloody claw marks on the walls, deep gouges that she noticed more than anything else. She hoped desperately that they belonged to an animal, and not to one of Crane's test subjects or the previous tenants.

Terror was settling deep in her bones. What the _hell_ did Crane _want_ her with him for? The only reason that she could think of was something that she refused to even consider. It was _unthinkable_.

Besides, she was pretty sure that guys like him weren't that interested in sex.

There. She'd thought it.

Her hands shook and she fruitlessly tried to steady them by clasping them together.

They didn't stop shaking.

Bridget fell onto the couch and didn't speak, didn't make a single sound; but she did move her quaking hands over her mouth, and that could've been why. Any noise that she did make was muffled and strangled and she felt very much like a trapped, wounded animal. It was worse, she realised, when she was in the same apartment as him. It was worse when he didn't pay her attention, when he didn't at least taunt her (and it was horrible to think that but it was true), and it was worse when she was left sitting alone on a couch with nothing but herself and the blanket of fear that seemed to cover her whenever he was near.

And she wanted to go home and she couldn't and she wanted to at least _think _about home, but she couldn't think about home without crying. And so she did nothing. Motionless except for her trembling – she wondered when _that_ had became a thing – and stared at the wall, scared out of her mind –

She jumped when the door that Crane had disappeared behind opened loudly. She turned around, her blue eyes wider than those of a deer in the headlights; he wasn't looking at her, though, and she turned her face back to the wall and closed her eyes tightly.

Silence thrummed through the air, but it wasn't awkward – it was threatening and heavy and Bridget wished that she could speak, that she could say something, but she couldn't.

"Comfortable?" Crane asked, and his voice was so disinterested and cold and utterly, completely vacant that Bridget didn't feel obligated to answer. She couldn't form words, anyway.

He did not press her for an answer, because he did not care.

She squeezed her eyes more tightly together, tucked her knees up under her chin, rocking slightly.

She wished that she was braver, that she was courageous enough to not be reduced to a trembling mess. She wished that she was cold enough to not be thinking about Colin West and that woman and Amy and how badly it had hurt when she was drowning.

So she didn't speak and Crane made no more words and once, only once, did she turn her head only to find him smirking at her.

She looked away very quickly.

(-)

At least an hour passed in complete silence before Crane spoke to her. She'd been stock still the entire time, eyes closed and feeling light and dreamy. If she held her breath and counted to ten it felt exactly like some hideously realistic nightmare – but when she opened her eyes she found that it was not and felt at disappointed for reasons that she couldn't fathom.

"Time to go to court, Miss Avery," he said in his slimy voice, and Bridget looked at him with a quivering lip. He stood by the door in his overcoat and she blinked, looked down and stood. Her footsteps fell like weights and she was hyperaware of everything; the peeling wall paper, the creaking floorboards, and the way that the air felt thick. The room smelled like dust and chemicals and something else that she couldn't place, something metallic that she didn't quite want to name.

They walked down the hallway and all that Bridget wanted to do was cower, or run screaming in the other direction.

Truth be told, the only thing that kept her there was "exile" – there was a possibility that these people would be given a chance to live, to get _away_. Even if it meant that finding food would be a struggle, even if it meant enduring the cold, surely that would be better than being shot and killed by some nameless murderer?

Colin West's dead body flashed in her head and she let out a hurried and almost frenzied gasp.

She thought she could hear Crane laughing under his breath.

(-)

The first thing that she thought was how small the jury looked from atop Crane's podium; it was no wonder he acted so arrogantly.

The second thing she thought was thank God she wasn't afraid of heights anymore.

It gave her an odd feeling, sitting next to someone horrible, surrounded by criminals, and there she was with the intention to save people. The only one in the room that wanted to do good.

Her throat was clenched tightly, hands gripped tightly together and left foot tapping continuously.

It was like being in charge, sitting on top of a podium looking out at all of the tiny people below her. If she hadn't been so terrified of Crane, she might've felt powerful, or at least less weak than before. If the people she was looking down at weren't vicious and terrible, she might've felt less afraid. If Gotham wasn't sacked and if she wasn't sitting next to one of the most awful men in existence she might've felt in control.

She was conscious of Crane's every move. He cleared his throat once and she jumped; he read from the long list of names and she watched him; he breathed and she held her breath. Every move he made was calculated. Every move he made was power.

_Think exile_, she told herself. _Don't think about him, think about saving people_.

The chance to save people – to give them a chance at surviving this, if, in the end, the bomb was stopped – made her want to smile like a little girl, to dance and shout and scream. She restrained herself however, and remained silent and stoic. Crane sat next to her, an almost-grin on his lips, his hair standing on end and that dreadful overcoat a bit more ripped than before. The straw stuck out more noticeably now. _Scarecrow_, she thought, and she swallowed hard. He must feel very powerful, she thought, noticing the way his eyes took in the court hungrily, noticing the way his hand twitched around the gavel. She was noticing everything.

The jury had grown visibly. More women, more men, and a handful of angry, hard faced youths; Bane's people, in their red scarves, were almost outnumbered by them. They looked more untamed than Bane's people, too; the teens smiled and the adults had fire and blood in their eyes.

She shuddered.

The almost silence (or, the lack of raucous shrieks and violent chants for death), that had settled over the courtroom was broken and Bridget looked towards the entrance.

The first person being sentenced was dragged into the room. He didn't kick or fight or scream, and in fact, he remained completely complacent throughout the entire affair. The mercenaries that were on either side of him shoved him into the chair, where he sat with his eyes on his lap. He did not look up.

How incredibly _young_ the boy seated in the almost-golden chair looked. Handsome, she could tell, even from so high up; golden blonde curls framed his face and his eyes were dark. There was a violently red scar on his cheek, and a bruise under one of his eyes. He couldn't have been that much younger than her, either. His face was stained with tears, and Bridget felt the urge to jump from the podium and help him run away.

"Daniel Enderby," Crane read from a never-ending sheet of paper, brows furrowed slightly – Bridget tried to get a peak of what was written on the page, and found that the handwriting was indecipherable. It was like looking at hieroglyphics. "You are called today before the People's Court to pay for crimes against the people."

_What crimes?_ Bridget wanted to ask, but she was too thrilled, too happy to even dwell on the thought for long – she had the chance to _save_ this kid, she had the chance to help this kid get away. She felt dizzy. Bridget didn't know what happened to people who were exiled, but, hell; it to be better than death. It had to be better than living in the City Hall with Crane and mercenaries and psychopaths and the angry, angry jury and shaking, scared people.

"Death or exile?" Crane asked in his bored tone.

"Exile," the kid said in a voice that sounded raw.

The jury disagreed.

"_Death_! Death!"

"Death!"

"Miss Avery," Crane addressed her, "what do _you_ think?"

All eyes fell on her – but the only look that she cared about was the pleading face of the young boy.

"Exile," she told him, her voice shaky.

Crane smiled slowly and she felt a chill run up her spine and he repeated, "Exile!"

The bang of the gavel resounded and Bridget watched Daniel Enderby being removed from the room with a feeling of relief in her stomach.

She had say over the sentences of the next five people, and every time, she conceded with their choice – they always chose exile, always in a desperate voice, always looking at her with desperate faces. Beth's words about Charles Daggett's assistant had long left her head (they couldn't be true, anyway); the faces of relief that they gave as they were escorted from the room made it hard to contain her smile, and once (only once) did she show it to an older, wobbly legged man.

In the light of all that had happened – all the bad and the fear and the torture and the threat of death and her life being entwined with Crane's – it seemed to not be as awful as she thought on the podium.

The second last person – the sixth person – was not as lucky as those who had come before her.

She entered the room like a wild thing, biting and clawing and shrieking and the court did not go silent for her even though she seemed to be demanding the quiet.

She was grey haired and hard-faced and the entire time she shook and thrashed against the mercenaries that held her down in the chair. Bridget watched her carefully, and found that her own hands were shaking, too.

"Allison Beaumont," Crane spoke and Bridget looked at the woman and the woman did not look back. "You are here today to be given your sentence and pay for your crimes against the people of Gotham." He was drawling, and Bridget wondered, very abruptly, why the woman seemed so terrified – surely she knew that Bridget was not usually there with Crane; surely the word had spread of yesterdays fiasco. Had the woman not heard Crane sentencing everyone to exile? Had she not noticed the lack of gunshots, the lack of delighted screams?

"So, what'll it be?" he shouted, and she snapped out of her thoughts, looked at him in utter confusion. But he was not speaking to her. "Death or exile?"

The woman looked at him viciously.

Moments passed.

"Death," she spat out finally, and Bridget's mouth fell open.

"What?" She asked, more to herself than to anyone else, more as a reflex than an actual question. Death. Death – no, that was the wrong answer.

The crowd gave a delighted roar, and Bridget heard the distinctive cheering of angry, angry people.

"It seems the jury is in agreement," he replied, about to bang down the gavel, about to shout out the sentence –

Bridget grabbed at his sleeve unthinkingly. He looked at her with his hollowed eyes and a clenched jaw, and her lips trembled as she spoke. "Don't do this – please," she stuttered.

"Miss Avery, the jury and I both agree on this sentence – even Ms. Beaumont herself concedes with the sentence. What is it that you disagree with?" The humor in his voice made her feel weak – all the joy that she had been feeling was sucked from her body, and her mouth was dry.

_Because it is wrong and she has done nothing because this is disturbing because it isn't fair because you do not get to decide who lives and who dies because you are a psychopath and shouldn't be in charge of anything give me that goddamned gavel and I'll let everyone go I'll let them all go home and be safe and be with their families don't you see how __**wrong**__ this is –_

"Please," she answered and her voice was hoarse.

That was not the right thing to say.

Crane banged his gavel, shouted "Death!" and Bridget let out a strangled noise –

The woman had a half triumphant and half horrified look on her face and Bridget realised that the woman was crying, too, and looking from Bridget to Crane, from Bridget to Crane, equally repulsed with each of them judging by her expressions –

The mercenary lifted the gun and she watched, horrified and frozen and unable to do anything but _look_ –

_Bang_.

Her mouth was agape and she fell backwards onto the chair that had been placed next to Crane's specially for her. Her hands moved, instinctively, to cover her mouth and her eyes closed. She did not want to see the dead body of Allison Beaumont. She did not want to see anything.

She was whimpering and she felt so incredibly fucking _weak_.

How could she ever have felt happy? How could she have ever been hopeful? Of course people would still choose death over exile – death was certain to be quick and no one seemed to know what happened when you were exiled.

The next person came in. Norah something.

Her trial passed in a blur.

It ended with exile.

Bridget did not speak. Two more people came.

She did nothing. She said nothing.

Another person was dead because she had failed to act.

Another person was dead because of Crane.

She was angry; but more than that. She was scared, and if she wasn't so terrified of the consequences, she might've launched herself at him and beaten him with her chair. If it wasn't so horrible of an idea, she would've done it already.

"I believe that court will adjourn for today," Crane said slowly, and then banged the gavel. Bridget jumped at the noise, opened her eyes and stared at him in equal parts horror and revulsion. She was shaking, violently, and terrified and she could barely _breathe_. The courtroom was alive, though, and people clattered and made noise and Bridget was overwhelmed with the knowledge that these weren't just criminals and psychopaths – they were also so disgustingly human that it made her feel as though her mouth was full of ashes.

She didn't move. Her heart was beating very fast, and her hands were suddenly at her face, running through her hair. Bridget was shaking, rocking, and hot tears were spilling down her cheeks.

He was looking at her and his eyes were dangerous. It was the first time that Bridget had seen _something_ there, something deadly and furious and as primal as the faces of the angry jury. There was something else there too, something that she didn't want to name.

She didn't have time to think, anyway.

Crane grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the chair and he was deceptively strong and she was petrified. He lead her down the pile of trash and she stumbled once, twice, three times before they reached the floor and he continued to grab her arm until they were out of the courtroom and when they were finally out he let her go and slammed her against a wall.

Her head banged against it and she cried out. His face was so near hers that she could see the anger in his eyes and the disconnection too, the fact that he was not all there at all that was painfully evident at all times but especially when she was close to him.

"I never got around to asking you, Miss Avery," he began, and his voice was dangerous and his eyes were wild, "what is it that you're afraid of?"

She stared at him and trembled and she was sure that her eyes had widen at least ten times in size and she wondered if he was like this always after sentencing people –

"Let me go," she pleaded, and she realised with horror that she was crying and suddenly he had her by the wrist and he twistedher it so that there was no way possible for her to shove him away and she gasped –

"The dark? Heights? Dogs? You don't seem to be difficult to frighten, Miss Avery –" He was spitting out fears so quickly that Bridget did not know what he was saying and a quite demented look was on his face and she was choking out sobs and crying and wondered why the hell he cared in the first place –

"– drowning?" He finished and her face went slack and she closed her eyes and sobbed harder and the waves flashed through her head and Crane let go of her arm slowly, let it flop to her side and she couldn't stop crying, taking in heaving breaths and wishing desperately that she had never felt happy earlier on in the day because she missed the feeling so much that it ached.

She felt him leave, heard his footsteps, and she opened her eyes. He was walking away and she remained against the wall, crying harder and harder still.

"I suggest you follow me," he said, and the danger in his tone was replaced with boredom. Her lips quivered and she felt hollow. There was not a suggestion in his tone. It was a demand, and so she steadied her breathing and, pushing aside thoughts of drowning and fear, followed him.

(-)

The apartment seemed colder.

She saw nothing – she _felt _nothing – and she spoke only once, very meekly, to ask, "where am I supposed to sleep?"

Crane answered calmly, evenly, "There's a bed in that room."

She did not thank him (which seemed to be the biggest insult or protest that she could manage at the time) and retreated into the room, closing the door very softly behind her. She didn't look around, and, keeping her grip on the doorknob, she fell to her knees and sobbed, one hand over her mouth to muffle the noise.

She'd been useless – utterly _useless_. She couldn't help the woman because she was too afraid to _speak_, and God, how fucked up was that? People that were scared did brave things all of the time – but no, she was Bridget Avery, queen of cowardice and queen of hypocrisy and selfish, selfish too, because the only thing she was thinking about was herself and not the woman who had died, not the one who'd been _shot_ –

She felt the urge to throw up and removed her hand from the door knob to cover the entirety of her face. If she had looked at her wrists, she would find that the one Crane had grabbed was red, find that bruises were sprouting where his fingers had been.

She hadn't even had the courage to look at the dead woman. She could barely even remember what the woman _looked _like. She knew her name, though – Allison. Allison Beaumont with angry eyes and a defiant, animalistic stance. Bridget felt the overwhelming need to jump into the nearest closet and hide from reality. _Such a child, still_, she thought.

She named them slowly.

Colin West. The woman who she couldn't remember. Allison Beaumont.

How many names would she know by the end of this?

She didn't know what the end was – the bomb or suicide or simply being rescued (because there was no way that she could get out of this herself) – but she wished (hard enough to make it _ache_) that the list would end with Allison Beaumont, with the repulsion and hate in the woman's eyes.

Bridget wanted that gunshot to be the last that she would ever hear.

She stood up when she heard footsteps, but they went in the opposite direction and so she walked towards the bed. It was unmade and the sheets were rumpled and Bridget was confused.

For a moment, she had forgotten that Crane slept. For a moment, she'd forgotten that he was human.

Despite the cruelty and the psychosis and the obsession with fear he _was_ human.

He was nothing more, and he was nothing less. Bridget wanted to laugh. Bridget wanted to cry.

Bridget very decidedly climbed into the bed, taking care that she remained on the_ not_ rumpled side.

She was asleep before her head even touched the pillow.

(-)

If she had dreamed at all, she didn't remember when she awoke.

* * *

_Author's Note:_ Hey guys! Thanks for sticking with me so far - and a special thanks to all of you that have reviewed and added this story to your alerts and favourites. I really appreciate it. Since March Break is next week, I'm hoping to get the next chapter up by next Saturday, which is about as fast I can write (I'm kind of ridiculous when it comes to proofreading). This chapter is a building block for things to come, so I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

That's it. Have a great day/afternoon/night, guys! And please review, if you have the time!

- Bridget


	5. Hatred, Fights and Showers

_Trigger warnings: _Mentions of rape, sexism, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, emotional/physical abuse, manipulation and murder, and gun violence.

* * *

**Chapter Four**

"People don't always get what they deserve in this world."

― Lemony Snicket, The Blank Book

* * *

Bridget wondered when the mercenary would come to her.

She had not seen the woman in days, and it worried her. She'd know if the woman had been caught, wouldn't she? Bane — or Crane — would most likely insist on making a big deal out of it; Bridget was feeling almost optimistic — she'd woken up alone again and Crane hadn't been in sight when she'd peered out the door; besides, the sun was out, and it looked darker but it was still the _sun_ — but she couldn't help wondering if they'd kill her friend in front of her.

Psychological torture seemed to be _everyone's_ favourite thing.

She didn't even know the woman's name, for God's sake, and yet there she was, hoping and praying and waiting like a child for her to turn up. _Not pathetic_, she told herself, _but almost_.

Bridget stood in the kitchen, very decidedly _not_ thinking about yesterday or the day before or even drowning — which she thought to be an impressive feat — and she had put two pieces of bread in the toaster, a glass of orange juice (she'd checked the expiration date on that twice, and it was fine) on the counter next to her. She had decided that when Crane wasn't around she'd strive to be normal — or at least, as normal as she could manage. Allison Beaumont and Andrea and Amy and Colin West were in the back of her mind constantly, grating up against her conscience. Was it wrong to not think about them, even if only for a few hours?

Allison Beaumont's unforgiving eyes flashed through her head, and Bridget lost her breath.

"God_dammit_," she hissed, putting her hand to her forehead.

She hadn't cried yet, and she absolutely refused to do so — crying was for the night-time, for after court (she shuddered just thinking about court). Crying was not for almost beautiful mornings, for when Crane had inexplicably disappeared.

She wanted to think _good riddance_, but couldn't manage it.

Bridget rested her arms on the countertop and then winced. Her wrist had bruised slightly from yesterday; it hurt to poke at it, or put pressure on them, which she did despite of the twinges of pain that jolted through her with each prod. She'd always been the type to do that, though; poking bruises and picking scabs and bending broken fingers. It was more of a curiosity than anything else.

The toast popped up noisily, and Bridget jumped at the sound.

She covered it in butter and devoured it, startled at how hungry she was. There were eggs in the fridge, a carton of milk; she could've made scrambled eggs, one of the few things she could successfully cook. Bridget was quite certain, however, that if she ate anything more than toast she might be sick.

She downed the orange juice quickly and debated whether to hand wash the glass or throw it into the dish washer. She opened the dish washer, not at all surprised to see that it was empty. Hand washing it was, then. Did Crane even need a dish washer? Did he even _eat_? She'd only been there for a day, but in that time, she hadn't seen him consume anything at all. For that matter, she didn't even know if he slept.

_Obviously he sleeps_, she berated herself, as she stuck another piece of bread in the toaster. _But where?_

She placed the glass back into the shelf and rubbed at her forehead. It was difficult to even think. Everything seemed to be moving very quickly and painstakingly slowly at the same time. Her hands shook, and she shakily sighed.

"Good morning, Miss Avery."

Bridget jumped at the noise, cursing quietly enough that he did not hear her. She turned to face him automatically.

"M-morning," she mumbled in response.

Bridget stared at him. He stood in the doorway, clad in overcoat and carrying a familiar looking briefcase, looking a bit tired but not at all exhausted. He must've been gone over night; Bridget wasn't a heavy sleeper, and she'd been awake for most of the night. She would have heard the door open — wouldn't she?

"How did you sleep?"

She blinked, deliberately staring at the floor.

"Um - I - fine. I slept fine."

She looked up and Crane couldn't have appeared less interested. He let out a bored _hmm_, walking into the kitchen - she noticed that he moved in an extremely calculated way. Every step seemed to be measured.

Crane was close to her.

Bridget was certain that she was shaking again, especially when he walked past her. He did not open the fridge or the cupboards. Instead, he looked at her, an almost interested flash in his eyes.

A beat.

She opened her mouth twice, about to ask _where were you?_ before thinking better of it. The silence was off-putting and Bridget had absolutely no idea what he would do, or say. She knew so very little about him. Not that she cared, really; it would be useful, however, to be able to know what to expect of him. Would he always be as violent as he'd been after the court yesterday? Would he always show up in the morning looking as though he may have gotten two hours of sleep? It wasn't curious, not this time - this was a survival thing. Bridget was capable of adjusting to other people, if she knew what to expect in advance. She knew nothing about Crane, however. This man was a grey area, and she didn't like it one bit.

She didn't know what his next move would be — not that she'd known him for long, not that she knew him at all — and it terrified her.

And she needed to get away before he did anything.

There were two options. Sit in the living room and pray that he left her alone — or feign tiredness and retreat to the bedroom.

She opted for the latter.

Bridget cleared her throat, and Crane's eyes slipped towards her almost lazily. He was standing quite rigidly, she noticed before she stammered, "Um — I'm gonna go catch a bit of sleep."

He quirked a brow, clearly wondering why the hell she thought that would be even slightly interesting to him.

"So, um… just… come and get me whenever you n-need me."

She left quickly and quietly, flicking the lights in the bedroom on and then off. She dove into the bed, burying herself under the sheets as soon as she reached the bedroom. If she nuzzled down far enough into the blankets, she was surrounded completely by darkness. And when she closed her eyes, it almost felt as though everything was the same.

(-)

Court began three sluggish hours later. Bridget had passed the time with sleep, uneasy and nightmare filled; she'd awoken once, mouth open in a silent scream, and thanked God that Crane hadn't heard her.

Her nightmare was almost identical to the one she'd had the night before; but this time, the corpse had belonged to Allison Beaumont, who had wrapped her hands around Bridget's neck. Bridget had closed her eyes, and when she opened them, it was Bane standing there, one hand on her neck and one hand clutching the detonator. She'd opened her mouth to scream and suddenly, she was underwater and the pressure of the ocean was crushing her and her lungs were empty and her legs kicked uselessly as the sea churned.

That's when she'd woken up.

Reassuring herself was difficult, especially with the similarities to the dream she'd had the night before. The effects were nothing if not worse; she'd rocked back and forth, but not on purpose, and her hands were freezing cold and shook so much that they were essentially useless. Drowning had never been an apparent fear; in fact, she loved the ocean, loved swimming and walking up the sandy beaches back in her hometown, collecting beach glass and pushing crabs back into the water cautiously. Out of everyone in her entire family, she was the one that seemed to be the least afraid of drowning. Suppressing fears wasn't even something that she did; if she was afraid of something, it was painfully evident.

The more she thought about it the more it came back to her; memories of the toxin, of what it had made her see. It had been more than seeing, though. It had all seemed real; tangible. She had tasted the salt water and felt her breath being knocked away — was it even possible for those things to be fabricated?

Flashes of waves and breathlessness and kicking limbs jolted through her and she had doubled over, curling into herself with her head bowed. Every part of her trembled. Every part of her felt simultaneously nothing and everything.

Crane had cleared his throat, hovering in the doorway, and said, "Time to go, Miss Avery."

The court was filled with the same people that had been there yesterday, as loud and angry as ever, and Bridget settled into her seat with unease, hoping that there would be no more like Allison Beaumont.

She folded her hands in her lap and waited for Crane to call out the name of the first person.

(-)

It wasn't hard to remember their names, or their faces, not if she tried. Georgia Seymour was a trembling, grandmotherly woman with a strong face and good posture; Kyle Parks was a thirty year old man with ginger hair; Travis and Julia White were married — on trial at separate times, of course — and in their mid-forties. Julia had begged to be set free, begged to be allowed to leave on account of her little boy, and Bridget had backed her up as well as she could, but Crane gave her a hard look, his eyes flashing. Bridget had been so terrified that she had merely whimpered out a meek sounding, "exile." The bang of Crane's gavel had made her jump.

Xavier Mason was soldier-like man who looked to be in his twenties; Emilie Saunders was a thirty-something year old woman with doe-like eyes and tear stains on her cheeks; Harold Cross was a fifty year old man with an angry, angry face and shaking hands. Anthony Greene, Rodger Hale, Esther Rosenberg; all were over sixty, and all were stony faced and angry. There were more, too — Hanna and Isaac Kensington, who she recognized vaguely from newspapers, both extremely attractive and raven haired, both only fifteen.

Exile, exile; exile for them all. Most of them thanked her, looked at her with something like gratefulness in their eyes. _Most_ of them.

But Anthony Greene had given an outraged cry when she'd given him his sentence; Emilie Saunders had began to sob; and Kyle Parks had called Bridget a wide array of names, "bitch" and "murderer" among the ones that she could make out the best. Crane had smirked, but Bridget had been too confused to notice; exile was saving them. Exile was giving them a chance, something that Crane would never, ever do.

So why did they protest?

Maybe death was better for them than the unknown — maybe they _wanted _to die, rather than be subjected to whatever exile was.

It still didn't explain "murderer" though — or the fury in Kyle Parks' eyes, the way he spit the insults like he meant them. Did he know about Colin West, about the nameless woman? Did he blame her as she blamed herself?

It made sense, but it didn't sit right and the not knowing made her feel like she was itchy, like she was going to fall out of herself the more she thought about it.

_Murderer_, she thought, and felt her eyes beginning to sting. It wasn't true, but it burned her anyway.

Crane was standing, already dismissing the jury, already done for the day — only twelve people had been sentenced.

Bridget had assumed that there would be more.

Crane walked quickly and she leapt up and trailed after him, making sure to keep a safe distance — she didn't know what she would do if there was a repeat of what happened the day before. His hands were shaking, she noticed, and she doubted it was with fear. Adrenaline, maybe, or the cold.

It didn't matter really.

She followed him quietly, slowly. It was easier to keep it together than it had been yesterday — there had been no horror show, no deaths. If she had to be in court, if she had to be near him and handing out sentences that she didn't want to give, then she preferred it to happen quietly. When they reached the stairs, two mercenaries joined them — and one was hers.

The woman looked the same as before, and her face betrayed not a hint of emotion. She looked at Bridget and there was a flicker of something that looked like sadness in her dark eyes. It was gone in a second, though, and then she put her hand on Bridget's shoulder and led her up the stairs.

The hallways were full when they reached them, and many people looked at her with interest, more than a bit of anger in their eyes. She noticed that quite a few of them were nodding at Crane, gazing at him with something akin to respect in their eyes. No one came near them, though — the crowd had parted around them, giving them a clear path, and Bridget was relieved.

"They don't like you," the mercenary murmured in her ear, and Bridget almost turned around to answer her.

She caught herself, however and with barely moving lips replied, "Why?"

"You're taking the fun out of it. One day without someone being sentenced to death, it's… boring. Exile is all well and good, but death — that's what they want."

Bridget shivered.

They rounded up another staircase and Bridget realised that they were almost back at the apartment. She felt a wave of cold dread washing over her. God, no. Alone with Crane — she would be alone with Crane again, and God only knew what would happen. It was impossible to be even slightly comfortable around him. Every time she looked at him, she remembered the mask, the drowning. It was easy to think that he was only a man, easy to think that he was human when he wasn't around; because when he was, he seemed to be much, much more. Crane held power over her, over the court, over the lives of all the once rich and powerful. And he was _Bad_. Perhaps not as bad as Bane, but it was hard to compare them. Evil didn't exactly register on a scale, after all.

"Thought you told me you'd teach me how to defend myself," she whispered as quietly as she could, and the mercenaries hand tightened on her shoulder, squeezing harder.

"And I will," the woman replied, and Bridget had to strain to hear her. "Soon. Don't fall asleep too quickly tonight, girl."

Bridget wanted to ask her why, but she didn't. They'd reached the door to the apartment, and Crane walked in evenly and Bridget followed him hesitantly; she turned her head to catch one last glimpse of the woman. But she'd already disappeared.

She walked into the apartment and felt Crane's eyes on her._ Don't talk to me, don't talk to me_, she wanted to scream.

"Is there a reason why you chose exile for everyone, Miss Avery?" he asked in a hard voice, and she turned towards him slowly, eyes wide.

"I-I didn't really notice that I chose exile that much," she lied, and Crane didn't laugh, but he looked as though he wanted to. Bridget could almost imagine how it would sound, too — hard and callous and just this side of psychotic.

"As… _gallant_ as it is, you won't be able to get away with that much longer," he drawled. "The jury isn't going to keep backing your decisions, Miss Avery, if it goes against what they see fit."

_Go to hell._

"What, exactly, do they want?" She asked before she could stop herself, and his eyes flashed and she felt very, very small.

"Justice," he said, and the word sounded like a parody coming from him.

There were a million things she wanted to say — "bullshit" and "this isn't justice" were among the ones that burned in her mind the most — but she said none of them. Instead, Bridget took a deep breath, set her lips in a straight line and bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood, hard enough to keep her quiet.

They stood there for a moment; Crane looking amused, Bridget feeling furious, before she walked past him as fast as she could and retreated to the living room.

She sat on the couch and balled her hands into fists, and tears of frustration leaked from her eyes — fuck, she thought. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

She should've said something. A braver person would have — a braver person would have stood up, would've told him exactly how wrong he was. A braver person would've told him to go directly to hell, damning the consequences.

But she was not brave, not in the way that she needed to be.

She sat silently, heard his footsteps, the closing of a door.

Hunching into herself, she chewed on her lower lip and tried to stop her tears.

Bridget had known he would talk to her, but it hadn't hurt to hope. And the jury — well, fuck the jury. It was composed of the corrupt and the evil and the disturbed and it made her want to scream. The mercenary's words played in her head. They wanted _death_. She could understand them being angry at the rich, the powerful, the _corrupt_ — and it was true that the majority of those people were corrupt, and in truth a lot of them were just as bad as the jury — but justice didn't work the way they were executing it. What they were doing wasn't justice, and she didn't know a word for what it was, but it was angry and dark and disgusting and crushingly _wrong_.

She could only think about that for so long, though, before she began to feel like she was breaking. She had to turn it off, had to distract herself, or else she might implode.

Crane hadn't left the apartment, but he'd disappeared somewhere, and Bridget hated not knowing where he was. It gave him an advantage.

Aside from the paranoia, though, she was desperate for a distraction. The apartment was bare and she didn't dare get up from the couch because she didn't want to get sucked into another conversation with Crane. His voice made her skin crawl, and the patronising "Miss Avery" that he tacked into all sentences spoken to her made her want to puke. She almost wanted to insist that he call her Bridget or call her nothing — but she didn't. First names were for friends, people who didn't want to hurt her.

There had to be a book, something written somewhere that she could read — a piece of paper and pencil, even. Anything would suffice, as long as it took away thoughts of court and the _people_...

She stood up, took two steps forward —

She heard the sound of the door opening and practically fell back onto the couch, looking towards the source of the noise with wide eyes.

Crane didn't even look her way.

(-)

Time passed slowly.

Bridget had ended up finding very little aside from a few books on psychology, dog-eared with notes scrawled in some sort of unintelligible cursive. There was a section of the books that was so filled with notes, so underlined that it was almost impossible to read — it was entirely about fear and phobias and Bridget felt chilled to even be reading it. The ink that he'd written in (she assumed it was Crane that had written the notes, as they were his books) was smudged, making it even more impossible to read. Bridget could almost stand books being written in, and the dog-earing didn't bother her, really. The part that really got under her skin was the fact that there were pages missing, and not by fault of the publisher, either.

He'd _torn out_ pages of the book, which made her dislike him even more. A girl she'd worked with at the library, Maggie, would've been angry, too; actually, she would've been even angrier than Bridget was. That girl did not take harm to books lightly. It seemed to be a personal offense to her.

Smiling to herself, she looked down at the books she'd stacked on the couch next to her. _The Psychology of Fear_, by a list of authors that she didn't bother remembering; _Phobias: Fighting the Fear _by Helen Saul; and two more that she hadn't opened yet, hadn't even bothered looking at yet.

Very cautiously, Bridget turned the page of Helen Saul's book — she found it was less like a self help book than she'd thought. It seemed to be more centered on what science knew about phobias and how they were treated. The writing seemed dated, and even she knew that some of the terms weren't used nowadays. She flicked towards the date it was published, slowly, and — ah. 2002.

She nuzzled further into the couch. If there wasn't a psychopath within the same area as her, she might've felt comfortable. The sun was setting, a dull memory of what life had been like before Bane had come and changed everything, and it illuminated everything with gold. If she closed her eyes, she could feel the warmth from it — not as warm as it should've been — and she could pretend that she was sitting at home, rereading Good Omens or something by John Green. The more she pretended, the sadder she felt, and eventually, she opened her eyes and continued reading. The couch was stiff and hard in the way that made Bridget think it was bought more for the way it looked than the actual level of comfort, but she didn't mind; it forced her to sit up straight and she liked to have good posture, always had. The straighter her back was, the smaller she looked.

The theories and the words floated around, and, after a while, they were meaningless. Bridget Avery was a smart girl, and she'd wanted to be a psychologist once (from the ages ten to fourteen, actually, back when she lived in a small town), but she understood nothing in the books — at least, she didn't understand it as much as she wanted to. Her brain _hurt_.

For a moment, she was impressed with Crane — he was smart, evidently, like, genius level smart. Smart enough to read those books and understand what they were talking about. And he understood it enough to make a drug that could cause someone to experience their worst fears —

No. No, she would not _commend _him for that. There was a difference between being smart and being a lunatic, and Crane was a _lunatic_, not a scholar.

Her eyes flicked around the apartment, looking for a clock — it was still too early for her to sleep. Bridget sighed, focused back on the words of Saul, half hoping that Bane would change his mind about letting her live and snap her neck so that at least the boredom would stop.

(-)

She fell asleep with _The Psychology of Fear_ open wide in her hands, and was shaken awake hours later by warm, cautious hands.

There hadn't been a nightmare, which shocked her. In fact, there had been nothing. It was a sleep deep enough to make her forget, and she wanted to return to it as she squinted through the darkness to find the face of the person who woke her — she realised suddenly that it could've been Crane, and felt a cold wash of horror spreading through her.

"Girl," a voice said, and Bridget's eyes cleared and she saw her friend, the mercenary, clearly. The woman looked calm, but there was something underneath it, something desperate and hard — the lights flicked on hastily. Bridget shut her eyes quickly to shield them from the light, and then opened them.

"I thought I told you not to fall asleep," the woman said, and Bridget couldn't tell if there was laughter in her voice or not.

"I'm sorry," Bridget said lightly. She stifled a yawn, ran her fingers through her hair. The clock read 5AM. Feeling mostly still asleep, she pushed herself up into a sitting position.

"So, um," she said, "how are we gonna… do this?"

The mercenary smiled, and it was nearly kind. "You don't seem to be the type to start fights," the woman said, "so I believe that we'll focus more on self defense than actual combat."

Bridget nodded, though didn't really know the difference between the two.

"Do you know anything — anything at all — about defense, Miss Avery?"

"I know that if you jam your fingers into someone's eyes it hurts them like hell," she blurted, and then flushed.

The mercenary looked amused. "A recommended move," she commented wryly, "but not quite what I'll be teaching you."

First the woman showed her how to stand, how to hold herself; and Bridget was terrible at it, not entirely certain she had her feet in the right place. Two hours later, Bridget was sore and bruised and panting. They had moved on from positioning to Bridget actually attempting to block and dodge hits.

"_Fuck_," she cursed, grasping at her side, where the mercenary had managed to land a solid punch. Not that it was that difficult — her stance was off and her hands weren't positioned correctly, and she really had no idea what she was doing, despite the woman's instruction.

She was good at learning — usually — but fighting and physical stuff had never really been her strong suit. The woman didn't comment on how pathetically bad Bridget was at fighting, merely readjusted her hands and started again.

The mercenary threw another punch and Bridget shrieked, jumping backwards to dodge it.

The hit landed on her arm instead of her kidney, but it _hurt_.

Bridget had the suspicion that the woman was going easy on her, too, which made it all so much worse.

"Fucking _fuck_."

She'd stopped shaking thankfully, and instead was sweating and aching. And smelly, too. Bridget hadn't showered in a long time, and the physical activity didn't exactly help.

"You certainly do swear a lot for someone so…" The mercenary trailed off. She hadn't even broken a sweat.

"Someone so what?" Bridget struggled to keep the bite out of her voice.

The mercenary did not answer, and Bridget's panting was the only sound in the apartment. Crane was gone — same as the night before, he'd disappeared without a trace. She almost wanted to ask the mercenary where he went, but she was afraid of the answer, and so she didn't. The question stayed on her tongue nonetheless, and she pushed it as far away as she could. As much as she felt that she could trust this woman, she had to be careful; Bridget wasn't very good at picking who to trust, and she didn't plan on risking her own safety just because she was curious.

"I think that's enough for one night," the woman said, and Bridget could only nod in response. Her hand was still on her side, and she lifted her shirt and —_ damn, that's gonna bruise_.

"You may want to ice that," the woman said, then gave her an almost pitying look, and left the apartment so silently that if Bridget hadn't watched her leave, she would've thought the woman was still there.

Bridget exhaled deeply. Her side throbbed. She closed her eyes, trying to focus on something other than the pain, and for a moment, she forgot that she was being held captive by a psychopath. The exhaustion, the fighting, the companionship… It was odd how something so dull — like books on fear — and a woman whose name she didn't even know could make her feel safer, less like she was going to explode into herself. But the momentary normalcy had passed and when she opened her eyes, Bridget felt alone and scared and childlike again.

She didn't know what time Crane would be back, and she didn't want to risk showering when he wasn't in the apartment to… well, to make sure that no one who shouldn't be in the apartment got in. He wasn't large, and just because he'd been able to overpower her didn't mean he was strong, not really; but he had a certain measure of power over everyone, and Bridget wondered if it was because everyone was as afraid of him as she was.

_I don't want to be afraid_, she thought, and suddenly, she was crying again. Not loudly, not hard; but tears were in her eyes and on her cheeks and she was biting her cheek to keep from stop herself from sobbing.

Her shaking resumed, and she took in a deep breath and counted to ten.

Bridget moved down the hallway, slowly, feeling like an idiot; crying and walking towards the bedroom, where she yanked off her jeans and took off her bra and fell into the bed. She cocooned into the sheets, sobbing into her pillow. The pain did not feel numbed. There was a gaping, bleeding hole in her soul and it was filled with guilt. Colin West and the woman whose name she couldn't remember and Allison Beaumont flashed through her head, and she whimpered. She may not have pulled the trigger and the court may not have been her doing, but she hadn't saved them. Allison Beaumont hadn't even allowed Bridget to help her, hadn't even given her the chance, the ability to save her —

And _Amy_. Poor, sweet little Amy. What had happened to her? What had been done to her? Was she still alive —?

_She _has_ to be_.

The ferocity in her thoughts surprised her, almost enough to stop her crying.

Thinking about the possibility of Amy being killed, Amy being harmed was disgusting and disturbing and fundamentally _wrong_. There were many things worse than death, but they were hard to think of. Especially when the one who died was so _young_.

Thoughts of Amy brought around thoughts of her family, and mostly, her father. The last thing she'd heard was the sound of him being hurt by mercenaries — was _he_ okay? Had he fought back?

_Of course he did_. The voice in her head was bitter and sad, and something in her heart was cracking. When the word of a revolution had reached her father's ears through one of the men who regularly left the warehouse, he'd been so eager to fight. Robert Avery hadn't lived in Gotham his whole life; hadn't even stepped foot in the city before six years ago, when they'd moved, and he was willing to die for the city.

Bridget never knew what to think about that.

The only thing that stopped him from leaving was her mother's logic. Bridget hadn't heard the whole conversation, but her mother had talked him out of it and in the end, he'd been upset but silent.

No one mentioned a revolution again.

Her father was smart — her father _was_ smart, and her mother was smart enough to stop him from fighting back (smart enough to know to stay out of it herself), and there was a chance that he hadn't.

It was a slim one, though.

Bridget let out a loud, long scream, burying her face in her pillow — and it was muffled but still bloodcurdling and her throat felt raw. She knew nothing about what was going on, about where her parents were, where Amy was. She was weak and she hated it; she was a captive and she wanted, more than anything, to be free. It didn't particularly matter to her if that freedom was tainted by the fact that there was a terrorist in Gotham that was keeping everyone from leaving; it didn't matter that the freedom might end with her own death. Being imprisoned by someone like Crane was horrible, awful, _terrifying_; some might've called him a drug dealer, back before he was the judge, but he was much more than that. His fear toxin had turned the sanest of men into shaking, screaming messes, and it would've done the same to her if that nameless mercenary hadn't given her the antidote.

She hadn't thought about the mercenary much, but now that she had, she felt a surge of both pity and gratefulness; the man was a killer and he'd been killed trying to help her. And that might not have been enough to redeem him to most people, but it was enough for her. Bridget knew what it was like to risk yourself for someone else, and on that level, she could understand the man.

Her eyes were closed and the tears had stopped, but the shaking hadn't — she wondered, idly, if it ever would.

Only minutes ago, she had been almost content, and now, she was sobbing again.

Bridget was disgusted with herself for forgetting, even momentarily, about the people who had died; the fact that Gotham was being controlled by people that were more like monsters than humans.

She didn't sleep, and a long time after screaming, she heard the noise of the door opening. Jolting up, Bridget stuffed her legs back into her jeans — once, they'd been a bit too tight, but now, they fit almost perfectly — and put her bra back on. She stepped, cautiously, towards the living room, where Crane was seated. It was incredibly jarring to see someone like him doing something as normal as reading.

She stood and watched, half awed and half mystified. He was a fast reader, turning pages consistently quick. It was a long time before he noticed she was there.

"I see you were enjoying my books," he commented. His voice was crackly.

Bridget had been meaning to say something, but her words faltered and she merely stared at him with wide eyes. He wasn't looking at her, fortunately. His eyes were on _The Psychology of Fear_, though it was obvious he was no longer reading. The page turning had stopped.

She lurched away, very nearly banging into the wall as she did so, and made her way to the bathroom.

Aside from the cracked mirror, it was actually _nice_.

She did look into the mirror that time, if only for a second. The person that looked back was washed out and pale and shaking, with sad, scared blue eyes and tangled and matted, greasy-rooted blonde hair. Bridget looked away very quickly — there was no way in hell that _that_ had really been her, right?

She checked to make sure that she'd locked the door twice, before stripping off methodically. It took a moment for her to find a towel — or two, because her hair was thick enough that it could stay sopping wet overnight and goddammit, it warranted its own towel — and but when she did (rooting around in a closet, where Crane had apparently decided all things he didn't want on display would be stashed; a tennis trophy poked her in the stomach, sharp enough to cut her and she swore silently), she set them down on the floor and moved towards the shower.

She went to step inside, eyes searching for the knob, for the button, for whatever it was that turned the shower on —

It was then that she realised that she had no fucking idea how to turn the thing on.

Her own shower — the one back home — had been simple. All you had to do was pull on the knob and twist it to get it to the temperature you wanted; this one was nothing like that. There were four different knobs, none of them labeled, and all of them looking like they'd be hard for someone as un-muscular as her to turn.

For the first time, Bridget realised exactly how rich the people who'd lived there before really were.

"I can't believe this is happening," she said to herself.

She wrapped herself in the towel, swallowed what remained of her pride, and strode back into the living room.

_This may actually be the dumbest thing you've ever done_, she thought.

She cleared her throat and spoke, in a meek little voice, "I don't know how the shower works."

Crane looked up from the book, towards her, and blinked once — there was a tiny flash of something on his face that disappeared in a second, and Bridget bit her lip. _If he was going to rape you, _she told herself, _he would've done it already. Stop. Panicking._

But the second the flash disappeared, he looked so disinterested that Bridget may have felt slighted if she wasn't so relieved. He walked towards her, grabbed her shoulder — she clutched harder at the towel. Her head was spinning quickly, and she was shaking harder and harder and if she kept it up she might drop the towel and the thought horrified her and —

"Miss Avery," he said through gritted teeth, "I have no intention to rape you, so you may as well stop shaking."

She looked up at him. His jaw was clenched ferociously hard and his eyes were almost as empty and cold as they'd been before.

"Why would you want me to stop shaking? I thought you liked scaring people," she said mindlessly, careless in her relief, and then her eyes grew wide and she had to resist the urge to smack herself.

He responded with a smirk, hand still on her shoulder — and his hand was warm, now, not in the least bit clammy, not like it had been when he'd…

_No._

Her bare feet padded against the floor and his were silent and Bridget felt like a child, focusing as much as she could at not thinking about the toxin or drowning.

He turned the shower on with ease and she watched carefully — there was no way in _hell_ she was asking Crane to turn on the shower for her every time she wanted to get washed — and he left, sending one final smirk her way.

The second he was gone, she threw herself at the door and locked it.

(-)

She stayed in the shower even when her skin burned, and dedicated most of the shower to scrubbing her skin raw.

It wasn't until later on that day that she realised she'd been trying to get rid of the memories, not the dirt on her skin.

* * *

_Author's Note: _Well, hello! I tried to make this chapter a bit more lighthearted than the others - though, it isn't as lighthearted as I thought it would be - because there are bad things coming. Hooray!_  
_

I'd like to thank everyone who took time to review, add this story to their favourites/alerts. I'm glad you guys are enjoying it, and I hope you like this chapter, too!

- Bridget


	6. Night Terrors

_Trigger warnings: _Mentions of rape, sexism, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, emotional/physical abuse, manipulation and murder, and gun violence.

* * *

**Chapter Five**

"If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid."

— Paulo Coelho

* * *

Jonathan Crane tightened his hand around the gavel that it held, and brought the gavel down in one swift, hard motion. He did not need to shout "order", to threaten his corrupt jury; they all turned towards him, silently watching him. Fear glinted in their eyes and he resisted the urge to shiver. There were more of them, and they were stronger, and yet, they were still — for the most part — afraid of him. _That_ was power. For a moment, Crane was tempted to up the ante; what would happen if his toxin was released? If the jury was so scared now, what would happen when they experienced real, pure fear? Some of them already had — he spied Victor Zsasz in the jury, remembered the way he'd screamed himself hoarse in their first session and allowed Crane himself to _smile _— but some of them would have no idea what it was like to be that terrified. To have all of their worst fears laid out in front of them… Crane spied a group of toughened looking men that women seemed to be giving a wide berth… he wondered, idly, how loud they would scream under the circumstances. He could imagine it already. The chaos, the horror; he was practically shuddering with excitement at the thought. Of course, Bane wouldn't be pleased, but what did that matter? There were millions of people in Gotham, millions of people that could replace every juror in the room…

He decided against it. It was a lovely fantasy, but he was more than content with playing the judge. If nothing else, it was still more than anyone else was given.

"Deborah Ellis will appear before the court…" he said in a monotonous voice.

It was almost dull. People came in, and then they were exiled. Or they were killed. Either way, they ended up dead — but the single, simple shot to the head was much kinder. Not that anyone was aware of that. It was easy to contain the truth, the way that exile was so much worse; it was easy to spread the rumors that exile was _safer_.

But there _were_ certain… _perks_ about his job.

Deborah Ellis was dragged into the room shaking. She didn't fight against the mercenaries, and Crane smirked. Of course she didn't. The woman must've been sixty — if not older — with dyed hair and a dirtied fur coat.

"Exile," his captive had responded when he asked for a sentence, and the court had agreed. No one knew her, no one recognized her; some called for death still, but the majority shockingly agreed with Bridget Avery.

Time was passing slowly. Bridget, behind him, was tapping her foot more and more anxiously as new people were brought forward. He could feel the slight vibration that the motion gave off. Irritated, he let out a sigh, unconcernedly as another person was dragged away. That one was screaming.

"Anthony Meyer will now be brought before the court," he called out.

The man was brought in kicking and screaming, struggling against the stronger men that dragged him forward.

Crane smiled.

Anthony Meyer didn't fight for long, though; the second that he was thrown into the chair, he broke down into choppy, loud sobs. Crane heard a noise of shock and pity from behind him, and had to stop himself from strangling Bridget, or smacking her into silence.

There was no place for pity in his court.

"Your crimes against the people of Gotham are truly appalling," Crane drawled, managing to sound deeply offended despite his almost complete lack of interest, "and punishment is necessary."

Crane's words were quick and to the point and the man shook so violently, looked up at him with such fear that Crane couldn't help the smile that twisted onto his lips. Perhaps if he was a bit braver, Anthony Meyer would've been a terrific test subject. His reactions certainly were noticeable enough.

"Death or exile?" He called out, and the man shook harder — a pathetically desperate breath was drawn from behind him, but he ignored it.

Crane pushed the thought aside, tightening his grip on the gavel in his hands. The City Hall had been turned into some sort of twisted, courtroom/safe haven hybrid; inmates of Blackgate and the corrupt stood together. The rich were treated like prisoners, like livestock; and the poor, those who were there, but not by choice… they slept in the courtroom at night or in the upper hallways, trying as hard as they could to ignore the piercing screams and shouts that echoed from Crane's "lab". It was impressive, really — right down to the last law book that built up his podium, right down to the last feeble whimper a test subject gave before terror drove them to madness or death. Almost beautiful.

The jury stirred violently, and the cries for death started — some were loud and some were faint, but it didn't matter. No voice requested exile… the jury was very good at being bloodthirsty, nearly excellent at keeping the cover that exile was more desirable than death.

"E-exile," the man stammered. Mr. Meyer looked not at him, but behind him, just slightly to his left. "_Please_."

"The jury requests death, Mr. Meyer," he said. There was a frenzied thrumming in his chest; the man in the chair was already growing paler, his hands trembling more — fear, made even the oldest of men look like children. "And I happen to agree. Your crimes," he spat out the word, "are truly _horrendous_. And you must atone for them."

Anthony Meyer let out a small sob which echoed around the room.

"This is ridiculous," he heard someone whisper, in a voice that was neither high nor terribly low; it was mediocre in all forms, and barely audible over the roar of the jury. He turned his head, just slightly — right. The _captive_. Bridget Avery (test subject number forty four, not counting those who he'd tested on before Bane had came) was a success; her sacrifice had shown bravery, and yet it had only taken two dosages of his toxin to reduce her to a blubbering, terrified mess. It was a shame that one of Bane's had given her the antidote. Her mind had deteriorated so rapidly that it'd been hard to take notes. The one thing that he remembered was that her mouth had constantly been open, stretched wide, but no scream ever tore out. She'd had her hands handcuffed behind her back three times to prevent her from scratching her own throat to ribbons.

Crane considered it a remarkable triumph on his part.

"Do you disagree, Miss Avery? Would you give this man exile?" he asked. She met his eyes for a millisecond. The spasm of fear that jolted across her face was enough to make him smirk.

"Yes," she replied in a mumble, brushing damp hair from her eyes. Everything about her was shaky. "Yes, I would."

"The jury has reached its decision. This man's sentence is death."

"Please," she said quietly. Her eyes did not meet his.

She did beg quite a lot; she begged to be killed (whether consciously or not) when she'd been gassed, begged for the lives of others, begged to take the place of the scared little girl. Crane hadn't planned on killing the child, nor had he planned on harming it in any other physical way. Mentally, however, the girl would've probably been broken beyond repair — but she would've made a compelling test subject.

He noticed, clinically, that his captive was crying.

She was the most pathetic creature he'd laid eyes on in a long while.

Bridget did not look up again, her shoulders moving up and down rhythmically, and he turned back to the court — the cheering for death stopped and expectant eyes stared up at him. He felt a jolt of something akin to electricity dancing through his veins — _power_, that's what it was — and he cleared his throat —

"Death."

The crowd was more than delighted, and Anthony Meyer kept crying. Crane found no sympathy for him; the man was a cruel one (or so he gathered). Everyone knew the Meyer story, even Crane. Meyer had cast his own daughter out into the streets at the age of sixteen, letting his grandchildren starve — if Crane was capable of it, he may have pitied the man's family. What a horrible thing it was to have someone so disgusting in your family tree.

Bridget Avery's crying got louder and more obnoxious when the shot rang out — he much preferred her screams, her whimpers… the things that came from fear, not from sorrow. He didn't look to see the blood that covered the floor, nor did he care to watch one of the mercenaries dragging the body from the room.

The cheers lasted for a long time.

Next came Leonard Parks, Mae Spencer and Clifford Carter, ten others following them — all were given exile. Crying out for death, the jury was ignored. Instead, the sentences were chosen by his captive. The girl's voice was shaky and breathless and not at all confident when she spoke the word, and she was still crying. The jury rustled and a few times, indignant cries filled the air. The noises grew louder as time passed, and a few of the mercenaries drew closer, instinctually, to the podium.

Crane wasn't bothered; the jury was a mob, but they were far too terrified of him (_of Bane_) to do anything. Some may have thought otherwise — in fact, most did — but Gotham was not at all under their control; they were pawns. A war couldn't be won without soldiers, without collateral damage. And that was what they were.

They were as captive as anyone else.

The last to be sentenced was a woman named Sarah Arrant; she looked young, and her name had been in the papers for a very long time. The fact that she was attractive didn't escape his notice, though he didn't particularly care.

She was crying, he could tell. Puffy cheeks stained with water and red eyes, her shoulders shaking violently, Ms. Arrant was met, already, with a harsh and loud cheer for death.

It was hard for Crane to know exactly what she'd done — Arkham didn't cater to the whims of patients curious as to what was happening outside of the walls of the asylum — but the way the jury reacted was sign enough that her sentence would be death no matter what she chose.

Crane looked towards Bridget momentarily, and noticed that her eyes had grown alarmingly wide and her jaw had slackened, giving her entire face a look of dumb surprise. Of course she would know who the woman was — there had been many a trial in the past few months, and most magazines had at least one article on the woman.

Ms. Arrant straightened her spine when she was forced into the chair, met his eyes with a clenched jaw. In another life, perhaps, she would be among the jury; in another life, she would be screaming for someone else to be killed.

"Sarah Arrant," he said, banging the gavel against the desk with as much force he could exert. "You are called today before the People's Court to pay for your crimes, which include — but are not limited to — withholding funds that rightfully belonged to the people" — an outstanding amount of enraged shouts met his words, and his body was practically buzzing, alive with the fear and the authority that he held — "and the murder of innocent men."

That one warranted a few chuckles, a few loud _whoops_ from the jury; overall, though, the court remained silent and stony-faced, staring at Ms. Arrant with hate in their eyes.

"The only question is which sentence you will choose. Death or exile, Ms. Arrant?"

"Exile," she shouted in response, and the jury gave a roar of protest.

He noticed that the mercenaries were drawing closer and closer to the podium, and he felt a rush of anger flooding through him. He did not need to be _protected_. Did they think he was that weak, that vulnerable? Did they truly believe that anyone in the room could bring him any harm that wasn't purely physical? Crane had toxin stuffed up his sleeves and, despite how small he looked compared to others, he was not completely defenceless. _Show them, _a part of him thought_; show them what it is to be truly afraid. _

But the years of proving himself had long passed, and he managed to content himself with the knowledge that he was in charge, that all of these people belonged to _him_.

"Has the jury reached a decision?" Crane called out, and a voice, high pitched and somewhat demented responded, "DEATH!"

He banged his gavel hard, with a shout of, "Death it is!"

"You _can't_!" A high pitched and breathless voice shouted.

Crane didn't turn his head, and the mercenaries didn't stop. Sarah Arrant was forced onto her knees, and he watched closely — it was painfully evident that the woman was afraid of dying, and she struggled against the men that held her down, screaming and whimpering all at once with tears streaking down her face — as the gun was raised.

_Bang_.

_The crowd goes wild_, he thought, and couldn't contain his smirk. The jury seemed satisfied — or, as satisfied as they could be. Cheering and jeering, the jury seemed to not at all mind the metallic smell that filled the room. Not that that was shocking.

From so high above, in the most dominant of positions, Jonathan Crane found it hard to worry about the time limit that had been placed on his life. Something had clicked into place, something that he'd not felt for nine years was buzzing through him — he finally had what was always meant for him. What was rightfully _his_. Jonathan Crane was truly powerful.

The girl sitting behind him — bent into herself and crying into her hands — was just a pretty little afterthought.

(-)

She didn't know what to do.

Bridget Avery had once prided herself on being level-headed, on being able to rationalize, but all she could think of was the victims — _five_ — and how the air seemed thin, how everything was almost constantly moving in ways that she couldn't comprehend or slow down —

_Breathe_, she reminded herself.

Crane had lead her back to the apartment. The mercenaries hadn't accompanied them, and Bridget had walked as quickly as she could, standing as straight as she could, trying to mask how terrified she was. It was difficult in the worst way — once, a man walked near her and her heart leapt into her throat and she had to stop herself from shrieking.

When they had reached the apartment, she — shell-shocked — had collapsed onto the couch, pulling her knees underneath her chin and staring blindly at the wall.

Bridget hadn't bothered to concern herself with Crane's whereabouts.

It was too much. It was all too much. The gunshots echoed in her mind and the sobs of the older man and the screams of the woman resounded in her ears until she couldn't hear anything else. Their faces had been lined with terror, slackened with fear; and their blood had landed on the floor in a matter of seconds, spattering and staining and just enough to make her gag. She hadn't even watched the bullet go through Sarah's head, too traumatized from seeing the man's death to bare it. Sarah Arrant and Anthony Meyer — both were famous for one thing or another. But they didn't deserve to die they way they did, their blood sprawled across dirtied flooring, at the hands of hardened, cruel mercenaries —

"Stop thinking, just _stop thinking_," she hissed to herself.

Bridget drew her hands up to her face, covered her eyes. She squeezed her eyes as tightly as she could, clutching at her face, willing herself not to cry. It was surprisingly easy. Fear had taken root so deep in her that it was hard to feel anything but afraid.

And that _hurt_.

She'd once been quiet but not careful (at least, not the sort of careful that she was _now_); smart and prepared. She'd been a laughing sort of person, sometimes too joking about things.

She knew what to say and when to say nothing, knew how to help and how to hurt; she knew what words to say when she wanted to be noticed, and how to hold herself in public so that she'd be invisible. Bridget knew how to laugh and how to make people laugh, knew how to smile and how to coax a grin from even the saddest of people. Where had that gone? Scarcely two weeks had passed by, and already, she was losing herself.

_No, you're not,_ a voice reassured her, but it sounded a lie even to Bridget.

A muffled, sob-like noise burst from her lips, and she adjusted her legs, curling even further into herself. _Just disappear_, she told herself. It was unreasonably difficult.

Not for the first time that day, she ached desperately for her family. To know where they were, at the least, would be a relief. The not-knowing had to be the worst, didn't it?

Her hands shook even more when she pictured it — Maria forced down the same way that Sarah Arrant had been, Maria crying and the sound of a gunshot —

She blanched. Hot tears burned against her eyes, but she bit them back.

_They wouldn't kill them_, she reassured herself, though it was unclear who 'they' were. Crane? Bane? Unnamed divine forces? Did it even matter? Not really. She wanted them back. She wanted _herself_ back. It was disturbing how quickly she had changed; her presence hadn't exactly been the most noticeable, not even before, but now, she was meek and pathetic and shaking. Pitiable to anyone who still possessed the ability to pity.

There had to be someone — _anyone_ — that would take her away. Amongst all of the bad, there had to be one, solitary soul that had enough kindness to want to help her — or, enough greed to want payment. Her parents weren't rich, but they were nowhere near poor, and they could certainly find some impressive sum of money to pay someone to free her. But money meant nothing now, and besides, who would betray the likes of Bane for someone as powerless as her? Bane had snapped the neck of a man who'd given her an antidote, for God's sake. Anyone who tried to completely remove her from her situation would probably experience much, much worse.

_You can't save yourself and neither can anyone else. _

Their deaths — Allison Beaumont and Anthony Meyer the nameless woman and Colin West and Sarah Arrant, that is — flashed through her mind, a haze of red noise and delighted, animalistic shouts. Bridget started.

She slid sleeves up with her trembling hands, and then changed her mind, pulling her sleeves back down over her hands.

"You're bruised," Crane said, matter-of-factly.

Bridget whirled around to look at him, eyes wide. "I — I know."

He was closer than she'd thought, standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. Masked in the shadows that evening cast, he looked almost gaunt, with his face awash with indifference. He never looked interested in anything, never looked like he cared about anything. She didn't doubt it. It seemed highly unlikely that he cared about anything other than scaring the fucking daylights out of whoever was available to frighten.

"What, exactly, were you doing that resulted in bruises, Miss Avery? They do look incredibly fresh." There was a challenge on his face, and a threat, too.

"I'm really clumsy," she sputtered, running her shaking hands through her hair nervously. "I — I just banged into something. Last night."

Crane smirked. There was something almost wolfish about him; those vacant and cold eyes, the mouth that was constantly twisted in some arrogant, empty expression. She looked at him harder. He was still handsome, no matter how much she willed herself to think him ugly. Silver rimmed glasses that glinted even in the dying sunlight, dark and unkempt hair, skinny and almost tall in build; it burned her to think that if his hair had more kink to it, if his eyes were less otherworldly blue and more dull brown, she would find it quite easy to love him. In appearance, at least. What she'd seen so far of his personality was impossible to like. Crane was cruel and heartless and ice, right down to his core. His sense of humor was too dark, too subtle and almost boyish for her to appreciate even in the slightest. He radiated authority and insanity in equal measure.

"Hmm," he responded, quirking an eyebrow.

But, to her relief, he didn't press her for an answer. Bridget watched him leave, the sound of his feet against the floor practically inaudible, even in the silent apartment.

He'd not left the apartment. Bridget didn't particularly care; her thoughts had already jerked back to Sarah Arrant and the others who'd perished.

Their blood had stained the ground like rust and strawberries and it made her feel nauseous to think about it.

Afraid and sad and helpless to prevent it from happening again, she attempted, as much as she could, to pull herself together. Her hands found her hair, knotted into it and her teeth dug into her lips as her body swayed unsteadily. There was a newfound weight on her shoulders, a fresh guilt covering her like a blanket.

Five people. Five people, with lives and families and friends and histories and belongings and fears, had died because of her. More had perished, of course, of the cold or at the hands of some serial killer that'd been freed from Blackgate when Bane had torn through their city like some sort of hurricane; but those people…

She could've stopped it. It would've been easy. It would've been the selfless, noble thing to do — the sort of thing that her father would've done, the sort of thing that she expected to come easily to her. But instead, she'd whimpered and cried and watched like a waif as innocent people were shot in the head. She didn't mind other people doing that — damsels in distress were fine. But she couldn't allow herself to act like that. There had to be one thing — one quality that she possessed that no one else had. Even if she was simply a lion amongst snakes, a just, righteous voice amongst angry people,

_Aren't you supposed to be brave? _

The voice sounded like her sister's, and she rocked herself a little harder.

Every movement her body made sounded like a shot. Every thought in her head was laced with blood and the bang of a gun, the sound of someone begging for their life and the sound of stony, silent resignation. The cheering of the jurors was a revolting chorus, constantly repeating in her mind.

It was the farthest thing from justice, and she was reminded of her discussion with Crane the day before, which had been brief and chilling.

She didn't think on that long, however. Her mind had already drifted back to Anthony Meyer, the tears streaking down his face and the calmness, just seconds before he was shot. The way the lines of terror loosened, the way his face slackened; almost like letting go.

A sob broke out from Bridget's mouth, and she didn't attempt to stifle it.

Their deaths made her angry. So violently angry that her blood buzzed, that her chest filled with the weight of words she wished to scream; her hands itched for something, for the ability to form fists or for a gun. Her jaw clenched and she tightened her fists, ground her teeth together. Her eyes were burning, but not with tears, and her heart was banging away in her chest like a bird in a cage. They didn't deserve it — they _didn't_. _Deserve_ it. And it was impossible to prevent it from happening again, impossible to have saved them in the first place, but her chest felt heavy and light at the same time and her legs trembled and she ached for fairness.

Bridget stood, abruptly. She kicked her feet against the couch, punched at the pillows. Screamed until her throat was raw, not caring that Crane was in the next room, not caring who heard, or what anyone thought; did it matter? Did anyone care to imagine what was happening to her? No one gave a fuck about what happened to Sarah Arrant or Allison Beaumont or Colin West or the nameless woman or — or even Amy. Why would anyone care to imagine what was happening to her?

_None of these people care about_ anything_,_ thought Bridget. _They're all monsters. _

Her throat ached and she pounded her fists against the cushions fruitlessly; it wasn't a relief. It wasn't as though she was draining herself of the anger. Bridget's hands rebounded from the pillows, and left no imprint against the fabric. As if she'd done nothing at all.

She screamed one final time, throwing a cushion from the couch to the floor. It landed without sound, bouncing only once and feebly, at that.

There were hands on her arms within a second. She opened her mouth to shriek, but in a matter of seconds, there was a hand covering her mouth.

"You were _much_ less of a _nuisance_," Crane sneered, eyes flashing more dangerously than Bridget had seen before, "as a _test subject_."

Despite her best efforts, she whimpered. He pressed down on the bruises on her arms, hard; she wasn't certain if he was aware he was doing that or not, but either way, she didn't suspect he cared.

"Were you scared, Miss Avery? Were you afraid of drowning? Was the water crushing you, Miss Avery? Did your lungs burn, did they almost give out? The sea can be such a _scary_ place, can't it?"

Her lips were trembling and she stared at him hard, grey blue eyes meeting his. She couldn't _breathe_, and it was coming back to her in flashes, the waves and the taste of the sea on her tongue, the weight of water dragging her down, crushing her and squeezing her so tightly that she went limp —

"_S-stop!_" she stuttered.

"What are you so afraid of?"

"_Don't_," rasped Bridget, losing her balance in the process of pushing him away — she fell back, hitting her head against the wall, collapsing on the ground in a pathetic heap. All of her rage had washed away, and fear had taken its place. Her face was contorted with terror, her body coiled up protectively, but Crane made no move towards her. In fact, he was looking at her vacantly; the danger in his eyes was replaced with dullness. A bitter taste filled her mouth as her eyes widened — no matter how many times she'd thought it, she hadn't realised how insane he really was until that moment.

Her heart thrummed like a hummingbird and she watched him carefully, eyes doe-like in the worst of ways.

Instead of leaving, like she'd hoped he would, he picked up one of his stupid books and sat on the couch.

She stayed as still as she could, frozen in terror.

And she didn't. Even. Move.

(-)

Bridget retreated to the bedroom after a while, feet ghosting over the floor. It was hard to say for sure, but she thought she caught Crane look up from the book with a dark look on his face.

She threw herself into the bed, clutched a pillow to her chest, and cried. The past two weeks had turned her into a child. She was alone and defenceless and so, so scared; and more vulnerable than she cared to admit, even to herself.

It was a practical joke, she decided, a prank that the universe decided to pull on her. A girl who is too proud of her own, nonexistent strength meets a man with all the power, and doesn't make it through. A girl meets a man who is cruel and psychotic and the girl turns into a ghost.

Bridget closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.

(-)

She woke up with a scream on her lips.

The dream had already faded away, but the after-effects of the nightmare lingered. Her heart pounded, face sweaty and body shaking, trembling.

Moonlight cast shadows across the room, illuminating everything with an odd, silvery glow. She looked towards the window, sliding her hands through her hair and kicking herself free of the sweaty, tangled sheets; softly, she breathed out. She'd left the blind half closed, but she could still see the gloomy skyline of Gotham. There was no great sense of loss in her, and the skyline stirred no fierce loyalty; Gotham wasn't hers to lose. Gotham wasn't hers to defend.

The city had never belonged to her. True, she was a citizen; but Gotham belonged to those who had endured the hard days, the days before the Dent Act and Batman, back when the Joker roamed the streets, and even before, when the mob ruled. Bridget had only known the name of the city then, but it had only been a name. It was still only a name.

To some, the city wasn't a name, wasn't a place; some people said Gotham the way others said Jerusalem, eyes shining with hope and promise and love and light. But Gotham was none of those things, at least, not to Bridget. Gotham was a plague. Gotham was a black hole, sucking all of its inhabitants in deeper and deeper until there was no escaping.

She'd always planned on leaving. Home — real home, the one that was surrounded by a garden and the scent of salt water that blew up from the not-so distant sea — was waiting patiently. Bridget had bartered with her parents about universities ("Just do your first year here," her mother had begged, and with some input from her aunts back home, she agreed), and already had plans to leave Gotham as soon as her first year at Gotham University was finished.

None of that could happen, now. It was likely that she would die as a caged animal, as Crane's test subject.

Her mind ached as her heart rate slowed and evened out. She felt stupid; pining away in a room, wishing for her own safety, while a city was waiting to be burned.

Could she be any more _selfish_?

Bridget heard the door to the apartment closing, a dull thud in the otherwise silent apartment. Pulling the covers over her head protectively, she mumbled an inaudible prayer to herself. Her bones felt like lead in her body, weighing her down.

It had to be enough.

(-)

She hadn't been keeping count of the days. The sun rose and she was dragged into Hell; the sun set and she was free. Or, as free as a captive could be. All of the days blended, bleeding into each other. Sleepless nights did not successfully separate her days; and days handing out sentences didn't register as hours spent. Despite this, Bridget could guess that it'd been a week and a half since her first day in court.

Another clue at the length of time she'd been there was the amount of dead. The list of names had grown longer. Ten had been added after Sarah Arrant's, and Bridget had to come up with macabre, silly little rhymes to remember all of the new additions to her memory — and some, she couldn't possibly forget. Grace Sudworth had requested death after her girlfriend, Eliza, had been shot. The woman hadn't cried, nor had she flinched, when the mercenaries brought her to her knees, and the gunshot seemed louder than all of the others.

Bridget had prayed after that woman had died; a soft, mumbled protective prayer that her friend had told her very late one night. It was one of the three that she knew by heart.

Christopher Lawson had begged for exile — staring directly at Bridget with eyes that she could see were green, even from a distance — before being shot between the eyes. He screamed beforehand, and it had swallowed her like a cloak made of despair.

Neil Ritter and Julian Knox and Elle Brown had all chosen death, fire in their eyes and hate in every movement they made. All three glared up at Bridget and Crane with defiant eyes, and one — Elle — even spat in their direction.

No one called her "murderer", but the hatred on their faces was enough to confuse her and break her heart. When she was younger, Bridget had cared very little about what people thought of her. But now, all locked up like a bird with only one friend (though in truth, she did not wholly trust the mercenary), the way people saw her was one of the most important things. No one had hated her before… not to her knowledge, at least. And those people had to know that she wasn't there of her own free will, crying and shaking and spitting out "exile" as quickly as she could. She knew that she'd failed to save many innocents — but, goddammit, she was _trying_. And (God, she hated to think it) didn't the number of people that she'd saved outweigh the number of those that had been killed? Human lives didn't equal out mathematically, she knew, and the fifteen dead because she couldn't help them would all be missed fiercely — but the ones that she'd _saved_, the ones that had the chance at living… didn't that redeem her?

Derrick Simone and William Pierce came on two separate days, but they died the same way; without a fuss. They stayed composed and calm, despite the overwhelming cries of the jury; and Bridget watched with a clenched jaw, flinching at each gunshot, balling her hands into fists and digging her nails into her skin.

Diana Palmer was the last that she witnessed for herself; she'd cried, screamed, begged Bridget for exile, for mercy, for a way out. Crane had looked like he might laugh… or maybe die of boredom. The jury showed her no pity. It was Bridget's fault, that time — more her fault that time than it'd been any other time. The jury grew restless when no one was being slaughtered.

Diana Palmer died screaming, and Bridget had been so hysterical that Crane had stopped the next trial so that two mercenaries could take her to the apartment.

It'd taken hours for her to calm herself down. She was almost glad, later on, that Crane had dismissed her; he came tearing into the apartment like a nightmare, the door swinging behind him noisily, and he'd spat words at her so fast that she'd had to listen as attentively as she could to catch a single syllable. Something about Bane, a girl and Bane — she felt herself growing colourless, her heart seizing up at the mention of the masked man, and she felt the memory of his hands on her neck, ready to kill her. Her hands instinctively moved to clutch her neck.

There'd been a sort of riot too, the jury in revolt. He talked about it — _raved_ about it — with wild eyes.

His words jumbled together even more as time passed; his insanity becoming more and more evident. All that Bridget could put together was that someone had attempted to defend two women. Whoever it was had succeeded the first time, but the second… the second women had been slaughtered like a lamb.

It made her feel ill, made her ache deep down in her bones, and she was too afraid to move as Crane began to calm himself. His hair stood on end and his blue eyes — once bulging — had deadened, and Bridget found herself breathing easier the moment the spark he moved and spoke with died out.

Bridget did not stutter when she excused herself from the room, nor did she stay to hear if Crane argued — or if he even noticed her absence or her words. The man was _raving_ mad.

His light eyes and dark hair burned in her mind and she tried to rub them out, pushing her fists into her eye sockets. He was handsome. Bridget accepted it; she'd seen many handsome men before. Jonathan Crane didn't particularly stand out. (That was a lie; in truth, he was fine featured, and pretty in a way that usually only women were, with high cheekbones and pale skin — and almost exactly her type. Too smart to fit the exact criteria, though).

_Psychotic doesn't mean smart, _she reminded herself, pacing around in the bedroom; it wasn't a particularly large room, though it was larger than her own. Whoever had lived there before was truly lucky; other apartments and homes in Gotham were not so abundant in space.

Bridget tried, desperately, not to dwell — or to even spare a thought — on the fifteen names. She would leave thoughts of them to the nightmares that would inevitably occur the moment she closed her eyes; flashes of blood, red blood and blue-grey waves that raged forwards. It was hard to think of and even harder to dream of.

Though she didn't look at herself in the mirror, she knew that there were bags underneath her eyes; that her hair was dull and matted, no matter how fruitlessly she attempted to style it (even in the midst of war, Bridget mused, she still somehow found amusement with attempting to plait her hair); that her clothes were tattered and torn; and that her skin was pallid, dry and always bitten red by the cold. She'd seen flashes of herself in windows, unable to resist the temptation to peer at herself; but the girl in the window looked so unlike herself that Bridget turned away, chewing on her lips to prevent herself from crying. She'd been pretty, once, when she tried hard enough to be; but now, without the aid of makeup, showers and clean clothes, she looked as ugly as all of the other weather-beaten criminals that filed into the court.

Excluding, of course, her mercenary. That woman was as beautiful as she was lethal, somehow managing to be gorgeous despite the layer of dirt that covered her skin and the men's clothing that she donned. Bridget had met with the woman once more, and there had been little to no progress. She'd managed to land only one hit, and it was on the woman's arm… hardly a valuable skill.

"We'll keep at it," the woman had said pityingly, eyes unblinking as she took in Bridget's sweaty, defeated form. "On the bright side," she had quipped as she closed the door behind her, "you can truly only improve."

Bridget had cursed loudly when the woman left, though she felt grateful; not many would be willing to risk their lives to help teach a clueless girl how to defend herself.

Her thoughts drifted, almost lazily, back to Crane. It was easy when she closed her eyes to imagine that he was hideous in appearance; she could imagine that he wore makeup like the Joker, that he had the lizard-like eyes of Victor Zsasz, that his figure was as tall and wide and menacing as Bane's (not necessarily unattractive, but daunting and too intimidating for her to admire). She could picture he had pimples and greasy hair and hairy, calloused hands.

An appearance as fearsome as his personality was.

In the dark, he was a monster; never near her — Crane still disappeared at night and Bridget still didn't know where he went — but leaving her hyperaware that he'd once been there, that he'd return.

(-)

The night rolled on with Bridget, tossing and turning as restlessly as the waves that she so feared. Caught between sleep and a living nightmare, her dreams were nonsensical. Amy held her hand and led her to a field filled with corpses. Her sister screamed somewhere far off, and Bridget ran through a field of thorns to find her. The dead — _her_ dead, those that had died because her words hadn't been enough — chased her through the empty City Hall, which smelled of blood even in her dreams.

Those were not the strangest.

The only pattern that the dreams held was simple —

Crane starred in the worst of them.

* * *

_Author's Note: _Hey, guys! So it's been a fairly long time since my last update — due to personal reasons such as my suddenly busy social life — but this chapter was a bitch to write besides that. I also just noticed a time frame issue — Philip Stryver doesn't get exiled until maybe 23 or 24 days before the bomb blows, so I'm going to edit that bit soon — I'm just telling you guys this now to prevent future confusion. Honestly, TDKR was great but the time frame was pretty goddamn confusing!

Also, I was wondering if you guys are still into this story? I'd love to hear some feedback and suggestions, or really anything that you guys have to say!


	7. The First Rebellion

_Trigger warnings: _Mentions of rape, sexism, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, emotional/physical abuse, manipulation and murder, and gun violence.

* * *

**Chapter Six**

"Ode to  
pretending I've never been where  
I used to live. Ode to hoping you're  
a goner. Ode to grieving nothing  
each time a villain is born."

— Anne Cecelia Holmes, Poem For What I'm Not Allowed

* * *

_Run, run! a voice yelled, and she did, leaping up and moving quickly - but then a gunshot sounded, and it had to have been her that was killed, it had to be..._

_She turned and - _

She was standing up before she was even awake, ripped out of bed and, subsoquently, into the land of the awake. Her eyes were bleary and her heart was thrumming with the fear and adrenaline the nightmare had given her.

"We haven't got much time," a voice said.

"Wuzz goin' on?" She asked, rubbing her eyes lazily.

"Don't just stand there, girl. Move. There's a - a _rebellion_," a bitter, hard laugh sounded, "out in the streets."

Suddenly, there were clothes in her arms.

"Dress. Now."

Bridget squinted, and in the darkness, she could make out the woman's face.

It was her mercenary, looking slightly rattled and almost concerned. There was a gun strapped to her thigh and a knife next to it.

"A rebellion?" said Bridget. Her voice was far too happy, and automatically, she toned it down. Drew her lips into a straight, disappointed line. Blinked. _Be upset, you moron._

The mercenary smiled a twisted shark-like smile, "Not good luck for you, girl - this rebellion is a farce. It's run by children, scarcely older than you. They'll all be dead before the dawn. Still, we must take every precaution. _Dress._"

"Dead?"

"Yes, yes, that's what I said. Don't just stand there, little girl, clothe yourself."

"What?" Bridget asked, blinking rather quickly. The mercenary ignored her, grabbing the clothes from Bridget's arms and beginning to dress her, equally exasperated and furious. She shoved a sweater over Bridget's head and pulled it down, and Bridget pushed her away meekly. _Does everyone think I'm helpless?_ she wondered, pulling her jeans up her thighs. In the darkness, her pink polka dot underwear shone like a beacon.

"Now, take this," the woman said, placing something into Bridget's hands. Bridget could hear the noises now, loud shouts and louder guns, screams of pain and anger. There was a thrumming in her chest that could've been her heart. She looked down -

"A _knife_?" asked Bridget hysterically. Her breath was coming

"Even you can do some damage with that," the woman said lowly. Her eyes glinted, and Bridget gulped.

"Where am I supposed to be? Where's Crane?"

Judge _Crane, you idiot, _she reminded herself when the mercenary gave her an odd look, and Bridget prepared herself for punishment.

"Crane left," the woman responded easily. She yanked up Bridget's hood, grabbed her by the sweater.

"Without... without me?" There was a bitterness in her mouth. He'd left her behind...

The woman gave a hard laugh. "Don't tell me. He promised he'd keep you safe? I knew you were naive, little girl, but you can't be stupid enough to believe _that_."

"Obviously not," Bridget scowled. They were moving quickly, and the mercenary closed the door as Bridget continued speaking. "It just seems a bit pointless to save someone and then leave them to die."

The mercenary smiled. "Madmen do not see reason the way the rest of us do. And you... you're cleverer than you let on, aren't you?"

Bridget didn't respond, and the mercenary's face grew serious as a louder shot rang out. "We've wasted time," she commented darkly. "Move faster."

And so she did. The woman led her, for a while; the hallway was terrifyingly empty. A few doors remained closed, whimpers and muffled sobs echoing from them, but the woman ignored it and Bridget decided not to question it. The flash of a child's face - a boy, maybe four or five - softened her, and she bit back anger.

The sound of shots grew louder and louder, until Bridget heard the distinct crackling of fires.

The mercenary grabbed Bridget's arm, turned her around to face her and looked her in the eyes. "Listen to me and listen very carefully; _run_. Do not look back. Cut anyone that comes near you - don't try anything heroic. Don't try to throw a punch, or a kick, or anything that I've tried to teach you. You'll only die for it. Nod if you understand, girl, before I go on."

Bridget nodded her mind spinning with fear and adrenaline.

"There is no safe room, but not many people know about the rooms where your psychotic little captor keeps his test subjects. Go there. Don't talk to anyone, don't look at anyone, and, above all, do not help anyone. Be fast and silent and strong. Don't give anyone reason to harm you. Do you understand?"

_She's a mercenary. She's a killer, she's one of Bane's. You don't know her name or what she's done, but you trust her. You know she's killed people and hurt people, but you're still doing what she asks._

Bridget nodded.

"This rebellion will not last long. It'll be stopped even more easily than the others, but we must be careful. Now, run."

"Others? There were other rebellions?"

"_Go_."

Bridget turned and ran. Her body was buzzing. When she was younger, she'd dreamed of this; but instead of running to safety, she was charging at some deadly foe, defending the ones she loved instead of running scared. But there was no time for shame; her hands ghosted over the railing as she moved down the stairs. The sound of explosions surrounded her, filled her ears, and she knew, suddenly, what Gotham had been like when the mob ruled, when the Joker ruled.

She was too terrified to think about it, though.

Her feet barely touched the ground as she leapt down the stairs. How tired she'd been, how disoriented - it was all forgotten. Bridget was more alert than she'd ever been, racing down the steps faster than she'd ever moved before. The faster she moved, the closer she drew to a shattered window. Outside, there was a rather pathetic looking fight; a few hundred rebels versus maybe thirty of Bane's men. But the rebels held no weapons and Bane's had guns and knives and tanks and more strength and experience. The amount of bodies on the ground crushed her hopes; there was no way that this counter-rebellion would be successful, not even if she hoped and prayed with all her heart. Not even if she ran out there herself. She'd be just another bloody body, and besides - the mercenary had told her to run.

She turned to move, and was met by metal coloured, icy eyes. She recognized the man from the news (one of the criminals that had attempted to draw out the Batman - not Nygma, but one of the others), and he grabbed her arm, roughly. He had a soft face - comically big eyes and a pudgy build, wispy blonde hair that made him look an innocent. Bridget couldn't remember his name.

"Have you any idea why a raven - "

Then she remembered that she was holding a knife.

_Cut anyone that comes near you. Even you can do some damage with that._

In one swift motion, she jabbed the man in the side - the cut was not deep enough to be fatal, but hard enough to slow him from hurting anyone else. He let out a strangled wail-like noise, and Bridget ran without looking back. Her heart pounded in her throat, and the angle at which she held the knife made the hot, crimson blood run onto her hands - but she didn't care. She moved faster.

_Faster, faster, _she told herself, racing ahead. The hallways were growing more and more crowded, filled with people laughing and sitting stoic. Some were joking about the rebellion and some were indifferent. Bridget later swore that she caught sight of someone placing bets on how much longer the "revolution" would be. It made her want to be sick.

But she kept moving, head down, feet quick. No one grabbed at her or touched her; no one even acknowledged her. She understood, suddenly, why the mercenary had yanked up her hood. _They don't like you._ The mercenary had told her that, and Crane had too (though the woman had said that to be helpful - she was certain Crane had only said that to frighten her). She wasn't particularly concerned with what the jury thought of her. She hated them, too. But she wasn't planning on murdering them - and they could hurt anyone if they wanted to.

"Hey, little girl," someone called. She didn't know if they were talking to her or not, but she picked up her pace - her face was guarded, hidden, but she didn't know how well.

"Don't ignore us!" another voice - this one higher, more nasally - sounded. Bridget resisted the urge to shout back at them. _That'll only get you hurt, _she told herself. _Stay silent, stay safe._ The same went for anywhere and everywhere in Gotham, even before Bane. Even after the Dent Act.

Her blood boiled, but she kept moving.

"_Hey_, I was talkin' to you," someone said, grabbing her arm - he was so close to her that she could smell the garlic-y scent of his breath, mingling with sweat and what she hoped wasn't blood. He was skinny and weaselly in appearance, and Bridget lashed out. Quickly, she stabbed at him, narrowly missing his body.

"Crazy bitch!" he cried, and Bridget didn't hesitate to run. Laughter followed her, but no men did, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

She kept her pace as she raced down another set of stairs, looking over her shoulder three times.

She ran as the hallways grew emptier, her feet loud against the floor. Adrenaline coursed through her body, but it was growing harder and harder to take in breaths. Cursing quietly, she slowed but didn't stop. It was easier to breathe when she slouched, and besides, it made keeping her head down seem more natural. Her sides ached, and the final set of stairs was in her line of vision. When Gotham wasn't being occupied by terrorists, she'd run. Through the streets in broad daylight, earphones in and music blaring, but it'd been hard - sometimes - to find the motivation to keep running. She'd envision that she was being chased, that her life depended on it - and now, her life _did_ depend on it. What was an asthma attack compared to scary, dangerous people?

Practically flying down the stairs, Bridget flung herself towards the door. The rebels hadn't reached the courtroom. Through the big, opaque windows, she could see the shadows of men being shot down, the shadows of men screaming and dying. She didn't know whether to cry, curse or pray. So instead, she ran.

Her feet did all the work. Two guards stood in front of the doors, but they let her in silently.

"Should've been here about five minutes ago, when your friends arrived," one of them grunted at her in an accented voice, and she lifted her head slightly, smiling thinly. _They don't know who I am._

Upon walking in, she realised three things. One, she wasn't alone - two, Crane's test subjects were locked away in the stall-like compartments, wailing and screaming and sobbing - and three, Maggie Hart was looking at her curiously.

Bridget was too thrilled to think about drowning, about the horrors that had occurred in that very room. Maggie was bedraggled and dirty and looked braver than anyone Bridget had seen before - more welcome a sight than anything and anyone else. Her hair was tied back and her eyes were dark.

Bridget and Maggie had worked together in the library, before Bane's men burned it down, before the screwed up thing that Bane called a revolution, and Bridget let out a strangled noise.

"Who are you?" Maggie demanded.

She wanted to throw back her hood dramatically, have a teary-eyed reunion, but there were others in the room as well. Men, women, a few well-dressed, crying children. They were all looking at her distrustfully, but none as distrustfully as Maggie was looking at her. Bridget skipped the dramatic introduction, merely dropping her knife and peeling back her hood for a second. She pulled it up again quickly.

"Hey," she said.

Maggie's eyes lightened, and she nodded. "It's okay," she said. "She can't hurt us."

"What do you mean?" asked a woman with dark, straight hair.

"She's a friend, and besides, she's more harmless than a fruit fly." Her voice was so reassuring that Bridget found it hard to even feel offended. Safe. In the exact same room that she'd been tortured in, she felt safe. Maggie was safe, too and these people with her, even if only momentarily. Maggie turned to address Bridget. "Is it true? Are you really - you know - with... with Crane?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, people are saying that you're Crane's girlfriend or something. I, for one, truly believe that that information is false, and I'll be more than a bit disappointed if you _are_ - "

"God, no. No, no, no." Bridget was stammering and seeing spots. People thought she was - oh _God_. _No wonder that guy in court called me such horrible names, _she thought. "I mean - _no_. Nope. I am absolutely not. Not even a little bit."

Maggie still looked guarded, but granted Bridget a thin smile. "Good. I prefer you sane and not dating a psychopath, because I need your help."

Bridget's heart dropped. "Maggie... I might not be his 'little sidekick', but my hands are pretty much locked in iron shackles."

"How so?"

"I'm not here of my own free will - "

"Are any of us?" asked a pretty woman from behind Maggie.

"- and everything I do... I have to be careful. One wrong move and," she jokingly mimed shooting a gun, her smile so forced that she could see the pity in the eyes of Maggie's companions, "bang, bang. Bye-bye, Bridget."

Bridget felt cold despite how warm the room was. One of Crane's test subjects wailed, and one of the children in the room started to cry, too, and Maggie's jaw had tightened. "Why are you here, anyway?" asked a gruff voice from the back of the room. "You're not one of us. I seen you yesterday, and the days before that, sittin' up there with Crane like you've got some kind of right to kill people - "

"I survived _this_," she gestured to the screaming people in their small, cage-like stalls. "I drowned every day and every night. I don't know how long I was here, but I know when I woke up, Bane had every intention to kill me. Said I was useless - not strong enough for his army, not skilled enough to be a mercenary. Not that I would've, anyway. I'd rather die that be one of _them_. Crane came in. He said that I was his and that Bane wasn't _allowed_ to kill me."

Maggie was staring at her.

"And then he told me that he had a job for me and that I had to hand out sentences."

Nobody looked sympathetic, with the exception of Maggie.

"Heartwarming," retorted the gruff voice. It belonged, she noticed numbly, to a muscular man of maybe twenty that was lingering near one of the stalls, looking in pityingly. "If you're so willing to help, why haven't you done anything yet?"

"I - I - " she was stammering.

"Michael," snapped Maggie, her voice so commanding that Bridget almost flinched. "Shut up."

"Yes ma'am," he sneered. Maggie pulled a face at him, and then turned back to her. She didn't pat her on the shoulder or hug her, but she did grab her arm and steer her into an empty stall, smiling reassuringly at the others. She spoke and Bridget listened.

"I'd ask you more about your situation but that isn't what this is about - and you're still shaking after talking about it for maybe three minutes. There's a lot of good people that are stuck here," started Maggie quietly, and Bridget nodded, thinking of Colin West and the fourteen others - all dead. All her fault. She shivered, and Maggie continued. "Not just the people being sentenced - we can't do anything for them. But there's people in the jury that don't want to be here. People that managed to get away from being sentenced - and people, like me, that just sort of... found their way here and can't get out." Maggie's hands were shaking and Bridget forced herself to look away. "It's a two women job, and I need someone on the inside."

"So - so you want my help? If I did this, I would die," Bridget replied. Death. Funny, how she'd wanted to die until the opportunity was right there. She couldn't bring herself to grab it. "I can't. I'm so sorry."

"Bridget, come on - you want to save people and so do I - this is _the_ chance - "

"It's too risky - and keep your voice down, there's guards outside this room. They might not frighten you, but it scares the hell out of me. Anyway, this jury already hates me - chances are, if we get caught, some of us are gonna be given to them. I'm not - I wouldn't have a chance. None of us would."

"You're not in charge, so it wouldn't be _your _fault. I'm the mastermind behind this one, and I'll take all of the credit - "

"Maggie, I'm not letting you get yourself killed - "

"Letting me? There are hundreds of people out there," she was gesturing towards the door, and Bridget bit her lip, looked down, "and they are fighting. They don't need permission to rebel, to fight against this tyrant. I don't want to ask permission. I want to be out there."

Bridget didn't answer. Her thoughts moved to the mercenary... if Bridget begged enough, maybe...

"I could get you out, maybe. But I don't know about the others."

Maggie's face clouded over. "Forget it," she said, leaving the stall. Bridget pushed up against the wall, buried her face in her hands. The hood of her sweater fell in her face and she felt tears pricking at her eyes. The door swung behind her. "Sorry, guys," she was addressing the people behind her, who'd grown silent. "Looks like we're stuck."

_Shit, _Bridget thought. The kid was crying louder now. One of the women had started crying, too. _Shit, shit, shit_.

"Come on, Avery," she whispered to herself. The mercenary's words ran through her head. _Don't try anything heroic. You'll only die for it._ This was different, though. It had to be.

She crept out of the stall, greeted by harsh eyes on her, glaring accusingly.

"Give me time to think," she mumbled guiltily. The woman who was crying flung herself at Bridget - for a moment, she wished she hadn't dropped the knife - and it took her a moment to realise that she was being hugged.

The guards burst in, and the woman quickly let Bridget go.

"Out," they ordered. "Get out _now._"

(-)

She lingered in the apartment, not sure about where she was supposed to be or what she was meant to be doing. There wasn't much to be done, unless she wanted to go downstairs and see who would give up their good revolution days to work for Bane.

The revolution had failed, and badly. About a fifth of the people who'd attacked City Hall lived, and Bridget had seen some those who'd been injured being cut down by mercenaries like their lives meant nothing. She recognized a few of them from high school, from college. She caught sight of a younger girl pleading with a mercenary to spare her father, and Bridget had had to leave, lest she involve herself. She'd torn up the stairs as quickly as she could, her hand on the bloody knife that she'd almost forgotten.

Bridget was half tempted to murder Crane with it, before she remembered Bane's words. If any harm came to Crane, the same thing would be done to her... if not worse.

_Maybe I could kill him, and then leave with Maggie. _If _I can get her out._

She banged her head against the wall, once, and then began pacing.

Crane walked in, ruffled and almost elated looking.

"Oh," he said, faking surprise. "You're still alive."

(-)

She wanted to tell the mercenary. Not because she wanted to sell out Maggie - but because she needed to share the plan with someone, needed someone other than Maggie's friends to reassure her that the plan wouldn't end with everyone laying dead on the ground.

Bridget pushed aside the visual with a shudder.

The court was filled up - new jury members brought on by the failed revolution. Those who hadn't switched to Bane's side were lined up in front of the court. Of the fifteen survivors, seven hadn't taken Bane's offer for mercy. They were stony faced and injured, all dirty and all furious. Bridget found it hard to look away from them.

Cheers and jeers and laughter and screams of "DEATH!" filled the room, and Bridget sat next to Crane with her back straight. She searched the crowd for Maggie's face, desperately, but saw only half-cloaked faces and a flash of Michael's angry expression.

Crane had showed up in court about three minutes after someone had dragged Bridget up the podium. She'd looked at him for a millisecond noticed he was more ruffled than usual, his eyes flashing dangerously, and Bridget knew to keep silent. She let herself look around, and then wished that she hadn't. The terrorist stood tall and proud, leaning against a wall calmly, and Bridget wanted to scream. Bane had sustained no injury, and Bridget cursed herself for not praying more for his death. He stood at the back of the court, his shadow impressive and dark and Bridget didn't look at him again.

Crane spoke and his words were merely echos in her ears. She looked at the survivors again - four women, three men. One of the women was being held up, her leg bleeding so badly that Bridget couldn't tell if the blood was coming from her thigh or her knee. Surprisingly, she was the calmest of them all. One of the men was hardly a man - maybe thirteen, at the oldest. He was leaning into a soft looking woman, clutching the bottom of her t-shirt like it was a life-line.

Bridget felt a jolt of fire in her bloodstream and fought the painful urge to leap up.

"...death or exile?"

"Death," said one of the men. There was no bringing him to his knees, no moment for him to say his last words - a mercenary shot him in the head a split second after he spoke the word.

Bridget felt her stomach drop, her eyes open wide.

"Well," Crane said, smiling wryly, "I certainly hope that there weren't any objections to that sentence."

A few members of the jury laughed, and Bridget looked at him in disgust and fury. He quirked an eyebrow at her.

She didn't look away.

"Genie Lawe?" he called hoarsely. The soft looking woman nudged the boy's hands away and stepped forward. "You know your crime. Death or exile?"

"Exile," she said.

"Death it is!" Crane cried, banging the gavel. The woman screamed, and so did Bridget, enraged and disgusted. She stood, wildly, but Crane caught her by the sleeve of her shirt and held her there.

"You _can't_!" Bridget wailed shrilly, clawing at his hands desperately. There was a bang, a thud and then - cheers.

"I believe I just did," Crane snapped, shoving her back into her seat with one hand. She plopped down, and realised that there was blood under her nails - fresh blood. Crane's blood.

"Didn't know robots could bleed," she hissed to herself. She caught his lip twitching, and wanted to scream in frustration.

Maggie's plan had brought her hope. _If_ she decided that the plan was worth it - because it was ridiculously risky, outstandingly dangerous to boot - and if it worked, then Maggie and her group would be out of City Hall and possibly safe. Ideally, Bridget would leave with them. Maggie told her so, and even Michael hadn't argued.

The hope brought her soul back - and now, instead of shaking and crying, she was angry. She remembered Amy and the first day. How it'd been almost easy to do good, to save someone. Bridget yearned to have that back again.

"Jared Carter?" Crane called. The man didn't step forward, but raised his free hand - the other arm was being used to support the bleeding woman. Everything about him screamed defiance - his shirt even had the Bat symbol on it. "Death or exile?"

"You motherfucker," the man sneered. Crane looked amused. "You sad, sad pathetic shit. You have no idea what you're doing - "

"Death or exile, Mr. Carter?" Crane called out. His voice was a drone, a sign of his boredom. Bridget wanted to hit him. _At least acknowledge him._

He caught sight of Bridget, and his eyes widened. "You demented fuck - she's a _kid_!" The jury was silent now, staring up at Bridget, too.

"Death, then!" Crane sounded indifferent, but the air was tense. There was not a soul in the jury that wasn't looking at Bridget -

_Bang_.

The man collapsed to the ground. He was bleeding, but his head was still intact, and Bridget peered over the desk to get a better look. _He must've moved, _she thought, _he must've moved and the shot missed him. _Crane grabbed her, yanked her back again as another bang filled the air. Bridget flinched at the sound, and Crane sighed.

"How annoying," he murmured. He cleared his throat. "Henry Lawe?"

Bridget's heart dropped as the young boy walked forwards. "You can't do this," she said loudly. "He's a _child_, you - you can't possibly do this."

Crane didn't look at her.

"Death or exile?"

The boy wasn't crying, she noticed, and that made it all worse. "He looks like he's ten!" she said, desperate. "Even you - even you aren't this cruel - "

"E - exile," he stammered.

Crane opened his mouth but Bridget spoke first.

"Exile, then!" she screamed. Even Bane looked up, then. "Exile, it's exile!"

Crane grabbed her arm but she pushed him off, not thinking. _You're killing yourself,_ her head screamed. _You're killing yourself and you don't even know this kid and you are going to die for this_.

"Exile," she said again, her voice shaky and unstable. Crane's men - the ones that always dragged those sentenced to exile away - were looking up at her in confusion.

Crane managed to push her away, giving her a look so dangerous that she felt whatever bravery she'd gained wither away.

"Exile," he barked. The men grabbed onto Henry Lawe, pulled him away. He looked towards Bridget and sadly smiled before he disappeared.

Bridget could almost use that smile as a reason not to sob throughout the next four trials. One of them had pleaded at her so that it broke her heart. But another outburst and she'd be dead for certain, so she sat quietly, hunched into herself. She tried not to hear the shots, tried not to hear the jury's cheers - it infiltrated her mind anyway, and she trembled.

The final death of the day was that of Kenneth Peters - fifty three, grey haired and beer-bellied. His death was the slowest. The executioner hadn't shot him through the head. He'd shot him through the chest. It'd missed his heart, but it was still fatal, and they dragged him out of the room by his leg before he'd even taken his last breath.

_Where are they being moved?_ she wanted to ask, but she bit back the question. Crane was pissed enough - or as pissed as he could be. His jaw was clenched and his knuckles were white around the gavel. His eyes were dancing dangerously, even darker than they'd been when he shoved her up against the wall and demanded to know what she was afraid of. Her hand instinctively formed a fist and she squeezed it, trying very hard not to breathe and even harder not to scream.

"Court will adjourn for today," he said. His voice was slimy. He grabbed her arm - oh God, she thought - and dragged her down the steps with him. _Don't let him talk about drowning or dying or anything at all._

They were moving towards the back of the court, towards Bane, and the jury wasn't making it easy. Angrily, they moved - surging like the sea - shouting insults and threats at Bridget, but too scared to act on them because of Crane. _Without him I would be long dead,_ she thought, and it made her feel so nauseous that she thought she might vomit right there.

He navigated her right through the area where Genie Lawe and Jared Carter and Kenneth Peters and Hayley Jenkins and her sister Laura and Theresa Willas had been killed. The blood and brain matter on the ground made her feel even more ill.

And then suddenly, he wasn't holding onto her. His hand had slipped - _no, he did it on purpose, this is to teach me a lesson_ - and the jury - seizing a golden opportunity - bolted towards her. It was disorienting to say the least. The blonde woman that she recognized from somewhere - the one with paint circles around her eyes - was suddenly in front of her, a grim smile on her pallid face.

Bridget stumbled backwards, already terrified.

_Drowning in fear, drowning in these people -_

"She doesn't want justice!" someone screamed. Higher pitched - a woman, maybe, or a younger boy. It didn't matter.

She turned around in circles four times. _Pretty big deal for someone as useless as me._

Her ears pounded as she turned again - a man with eyes like oil, a man with a hard face -

Hands on her, then - her arms, her sides, pulling her down, pulling her back, and she was shrieking.

The sound of a gavel banging in the background fueled what little bravery she had, and she kicked at those who were holding onto her.

"Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!"

She could've cried and she could've given up, but she didn't. A man stepped in front of her and she clawed his face so violently that he cried out - the jury was in a fight now, not just concerned with her. She could feel blood under her fingernails. Bridget caught sight of the old man that she'd stood next to on the first day just as he stabbed a boy holding a gun to the side of a woman's head; the man who smelled like garlic and his cronies had turned on each other. Now three of them lay dead, and the other three were left to fight. The blonde woman - she'd lost sight of her, but she thought she caught her butchering someone with a switchblade. She screamed, lurching forwards.

She was brought back with a blow to her stomach.

That was when the knife was brought to her neck. The metal was so cold that it burned icily on her neck. She screamed, clawed - fought harder. The more she moved, the tighter the blade was pressed against her throat. It cut her, she could tell by the sharp pain that ran through her. Not deep, though. Not deep.

_I do not want to die, I do not want to die, I do not... _

"You're almost a pretty thing, aren't you?" someone said slickly. "Let's cut you up and see how pretty you are then."

Bridget shrieked, smashing her fists against the ground, kicking her legs uselessly. She heard an _oof_, and knew that someone had been on the recieving end of her wildly moving limbs.

The gavel banged again.

The knife glinted.

She shrieked.

It took a minute for the pain to kick in, and when it did, she writhed and wailed louder. Not her legs, not her stomach - her cheek. It was on _fire_ with pain and she sobbed, clutching at it. Her feet moved faster and she managed to land another hit on someone, this time with her hands.

"Make as much noise as you want, princess," someone snarled. "No one's coming for you."

The knife dug in further and she did it. She screamed, loud and long and bloodcurdling. Black spots danced in front of her eyes.

The gavel banged again, and the world grew silent. The knife was gone, and Bridget breathed out. Her mouth tasted metallic.

Someone moved towards her and yanked her up, but she didn't feel it. Her face burned, and she could feel something trickling down it, something hot and liquid.

"_Court. Is. Dis. Missed._" Crane's voice was ice.

Bridget shook.

She felt dreamy and lightheaded, relying fully on the arms of whoever was holding her up. Warm, calloused hands on her shoulder. Almost safe. Almost nice. Whoever was holding her changed her position, scooping her up like a child. Bridget cried out when her face scraped against the rough fabric of the person's jacket. She drew her hand up to assess the damage on her face.

"Do not touch," commanded an accented voice. Bridget dropped her hand.

Black spots danced in front of her eyes and she fell into darkness.

(-)

_Author's Note: _Woohoo! First major plot point down, guys!

Everything happened really quickly, which was kind of the point - how quickly things can go to hell. Also I've been compiling a list of songs that I listen to when I write this, and it'll probably be up on 8tracks eventually (pandorasocks is my username).

Also, reminder that I screwed up the timing. I still haven't fixed it - because I really don't want to - but I will, eventually. Sorry for the short chapter, but the next one should be up soon, and it will definitely be longer!


	8. Dreamland

**_Trigger warnings: _**Mentions of rape, sexism, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, emotional/physical abuse, manipulation and murder, and gun violence.

* * *

**Chapter Seven  
**

They were mislead. Betrayed by their own stupid hopes. Things couldn't be different for them, because they weren't special after all. So life took them, led them, and they went along, you see? They faded before their own eyes, till they were nothing more than living ghosts, haunting each other with what could be. What can't be.

― Libba Bray, _ A Great and Terrible Beauty_

* * *

The first nightmare came as a wave.

Breaking over her head, the sound of crashes that usually accompanied it had been replaced by the screams of derision from a mob, and Bridget felt herself screaming and writhing against the hands that grabbed her. It made the breathlessness all the worse, the way they clawed and clutched at her, and she screamed and screamed and screamed until there was nothing but blackness.

(-)

The conversation floated in like a breeze, and Bridget in her half-awake state heard it distantly. The words were not words, not to her; it was as if she was hearing the radio on a very long road trip as she nodded to sleep.

"…Ready for another dose?"

"…Boss said we shouldn't give her more, yet."

"_Your_ boss—I do not work for the crazies like you, ay?"

"Big man's plenty crazy, I bet. He just hides it better."

(-)

They were all different now.

In some, she was drowning. Struggling against the waves got old; fighting for your life, for your breath… it was exhausting. She wasn't sure what reality was anymore—was she constantly drowning? Had she just invented the Crane scenario to placate herself, to reassure herself that death was the sweetest option?

But then the mob would come bursting through, grabbing at her and pulling her, ripping her from the water but bringing her the courtroom and attacking like wolves; sometimes, they looked more like monsters than men, snarling and growling like absolute beasts. Sometimes she couldn't even move—she'd given all of her effort to screaming for someone to help.

No one ever did.

(-)

The world was twinkling.

Bridget had never seen such pretty lights. Not on the First of July, not on the Fourth of July, not even in Disneyland. It was like she'd been transported into a fairyland; the pale lights darted around in the gloom, the only visible things for miles. Beautifully, they arranged themselves into familiar silhouettes. Her mother—her father—her sister. She wanted to call out, but found that her mouth refused to open. For a moment, she'd been panicked. But the lights blinked and flickered and swirled into a new pattern—a boy from her memory—and the urge to run forward was replaced with the urge to admire. The glowing things formed another shape, and then another, and Bridget found herself moving with them. They were pale and white and glittering, dancing just beyond her eyelids and just out of her reach. No matter how hard she tried to reach them, they flashed away slowly.

_ Come back_, she thought desperately. She strained against the dark, wriggling towards the bright as much as she could.

_Come and catch us_, the lights replied, winking playfully. She darted after them, but by the time she caught up, the lights were gone and Bridget was left alone in the dark.

(-)

There was a man standing over her with a needle, and she was screaming, thrashing, fighting. His eyes were ice and his hands were, too.

"You sure this is a good idea?" said someone in the distance. Whoever had spoken was foggy, blurry; she had no concern for them as she thrashed, gnawing down on something fleshy as hard as she could.

"Of course I am. Calm down," a cool voice instructed her, sounding exasperated, "this won't hurt."

But the voice belonged to a snake, to a liar. She could see it, hear it. Bridget knew it, even without opening her eyes again.

_Liar, liar, liar! _

She was rabid, a complete animal; Bridget thrashed one last time, uselessly, and there was an empty silence—devoid of anything but her wailings, her nonsensical cries—

The needle pierced her skin and she screamed and screamed, long and loud, violently convulsing as she was lost to a mob of people wearing masks.

(-)

She came to slowly.

Her fingers—previously numb—felt tingly and frozen, and shakily, she opened her fists. Her toes wiggled, and Bridget felt the scratchiness of a blanket over her for the first time. Blearily, her eyes opened, and then rolled closed again.

_What the hell? _she thought. Her nightmare had been eerily genuine feeling; as if it was a memory, not a horrific nightmare. The details were fuzzy, the same way she felt. It was as though her body was a snowy television, and her mind resembled something similar. Flashes of the nightmare were coming back to her, more and more vivid each time.

"Mom?" she croaked, her voice lower than it should've been.

There was a snicker—distant and hollow and bone chilling—from the corner of the room, and Bridget looked up, a new and horrified expression on her face. It was a man, wearing a red scarf. There was nothing familiar in his features; but the red scarf that was tied around his neck like a noose was enough to send a chill clean down her spine. Red scarf. Red hands. Red _blood_.

She cried out—whether in pain or from the crushingly overwhelming realization that her nightmare hadn't been a dream at all, she wasn't certain. Her cheek stung fiercely, and Bridget bit down on her tongue to avoid screaming any more. The pain wasn't blinding, wasn't dizzying, but she ran her hand over the place where it stung and felt the bumpiness of stitches. A coldness washed over her—_oh God_, she thought, _no_ _please, no_—and wildly, she glanced about the room as the mercenary ducked out, running madly and shouting in what she thought might be Arabic.

The memories were folding in on her, crashing over her and crushing her with their terrible weight. Maggie's request, the mob, Crane's order, the knife. But she pushed them as far away as she could, focusing on the near impossible task that she'd given herself; finding a mirror. True, Bridget hadn't looked at herself since before Gotham had fallen. But the not knowing was driving her mad.

She heard footsteps pounding up the hallway and dashed towards the door, throwing the blankets from her legs quickly. The door closed with a nearly inaudible thud as Bridget flung herself at it, locking it with deft hands. It was a stupid plot, one that would surely end in her death—but the farce of her reality being a childish nightmare had been destroyed (not that she'd ever believed it) before she could comfort herself, and besides, she didn't much mind the prospect of death. Perhaps she even deserved it; the faces of the souls she had failed to save taunted her, and she stifled a scream. That was all she ever did now; feel like screaming and then stifling. Stifling emotions, morals, beliefs… and screaming in rage and sorrow. _I'll die desperately, _she thought with little emotion, _but it's better than being executed. _

Bridget hurled herself to the dresser, yanking the drawers open with one hand and running the other over the bandage, half tempted to peel it back slowly and half to rip it off quickly. Her eyes raked the drawer, her desperation growing as she realized that the drawer she'd opened contained two pairs of socks and a small and black diary.

"Come on," she chanted, her voice scarcely above a whisper, growing stronger each time she repeated the words, "come on, come on, come _on_!"

With a slam, she closed that drawer, moving to the next. And then the next, and the next and finally—

An empty mint container with a silverware like feel and colour; she scrambled to pick it up as the noise of footsteps flooded the hallway again. A voice that sounded like ice filled the air, laden thickly with condescension and pride, and Bridget's fingers shook as she lifted the tin in the air, staring at her reflection.

Her cheekbones had hollowed themselves, her hair a matted horror—how long had it been since she'd showered? There were deep circles underneath her eyes, and idly, Bridget wondered how much of her dreams had truly been dreams and which had been reality. Without another second's hesitation, she yanked the bandage from her cheek.

It was grotesque. Stitches of black lined her cheeks, sewing together a calm—but monstrously large and disgusting—wound. The neurotic part of her wondered if it would scar, whereas the child felt noting but abhorrence.

She couldn't stop the cry that came flying out of her. Like a wounded animal, Bridget flung the empty container away, tears spilling down her cheeks, salt burning at the gash._ This isn't real, this isn't real… it cannot possibly be real._

The tears painted her face with their wetness, lining her pale skin with a trail of water, as if she'd simply been standing outside in the rain. It would've been completely like that if she wasn't making such desperately grief-stricken noises. For the first time in a long time, Bridget wasn't crying for the lives lost, the impending doom that was the bomb, or her own imprisonment; she was crying for her face, for the gruesome cut that marred her skin. She was crying for a reason that the old her would've cried over, too; if she hadn't been so lost to herself, she might've grinned. But the triumph was lost on her, and she cried on.

The footsteps had halted, and in their wake came the banging of bodies throwing themselves at the wall. Not a wall, she thought distantly, a door. It was too far away—or maybe she was the far away one—for her to hear.

Quickly, Bridget jumped to her feet and began to shove the dresser in front of the door. The men would get in one way or another, but she would not allow them the satisfaction of simply breaking the locks. The naïve part of her—the more predominant part—was hoping that perhaps they'd simply give up and allow her to starve to death. She sunk to the floor when she was done pushing the stupid piece of furniture, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and choking on her own sobs.

The laughter came when the tears had stopped, pealing out of her mouth like rainfall and dropping into an empty room. _Stupid, stupid_, she chastised herself, _this was never going to end well_.

She loathed Amy, that timid little thing, and she loved her, and Bridget wasn't sure which was the more dominant. If it hadn't been for Amy and her big eyes, her innocence and her age, Bridget might've still been with her family—alive or not. She could've still been herself—a tainted version of herself, because no one in this new Gotham was pure, not even those who thought that they could be, that they were—and Amy was somewhere not knowing how bad life could get when you did the right thing.

She laughed louder, slamming her hands down against the dresser so hard that she felt the reverberations of the blow through her body. It shook her bones, her teeth, her heart, but it wasn't enough—so she slammed harder, laughing still.

This was not the breaking point, she knew. This was not how she would end, how she'd be ruined. It was a tantrum, an outcry, a plead to the grand Whoever to take her away before she did something horrible. There was a window in the room, wide open and sending in a bitingly cold breeze, and for a moment, she considered jumping from the building. But the fall wouldn't kill her and the mercenaries would most likely pursue, and she was in no mood to stay silent as she hid.

Suicide wasn't a viable option, and that made her laugh harder, until it sounded more like a scream. The door gave way, and Bridget felt like an ill-behaved child, staring into the eyes of her captor as he eyed her, the glint in his eye dangerously amused and livelier than she liked it. Bridget _knew_ that look, and she forced her jaw to close, biting back her laughter even as the mercenaries backed slowly out of the room and Crane moved towards her the way a hunter might stalk towards its prey.

Bridget spoke, her voice solid for the first time in weeks. The laugh was still caught there in her throat, making her voice sound like an eerily cheerful threat, and for a moment, the Joker panned through her mind. "You did it on purpose."

Crane quirked an eyebrow, regarding her with an odd expression on his face; exasperation laced his posture, the quirk of his lips, but all other signs pointed to him being elated. Bridget instinctively pulled back, moving slowly so as not to attract attention. "What, exactly, did I do?"

"You—you—you—you left me to _them_," she sputtered resentfully, her voice rising above its usual calm octave. The laughter pounded in her head, and she wished momentarily that she could let it out again. "They could've killed me!"

(There was something in the way that her usually soft jaw was jutting out that made Crane stare at her all the harder. The softness of her face made her seem like someone incapable of anger, and he'd never seen her features blazing with fury the way they were now. The scar on her cheek, ugly as it was, was forgotten; all focus was drawn away the second she spoke.)

He didn't respond, sighing slightly as though he was bored. The spark had left his eyes, and for a moment, Bridget was calmed. No fear-crazed monster version of this sociopath would be threatening her today, and it was enough to give her back her metaphorical spine.

"I could've died," she said aloud, as if just realizing this herself. She looked at Crane searchingly, something angry and burning spreading across her face. His blank expression didn't waver. He was utterly unreadable, and infinitely frustrating, and Bridget felt fury boiling inside of her. "I could've _died_."

"Yes," he remarked. "I suppose you could've."

Bridget snapped her jaw shut as he stalked closer, his face an emotionless mask once again. She knew better than to draw back, gluing herself in place.

"Let me explain this to you clearly," he drawled. His eyes were ice and his words hissed, and she remembered the hazy almost awareness that she'd experienced and the needles, the toxins, the absolute and complete terror. "You are not here to be a friend, or a companion, or even a human. You are a test subject, Miss Avery. You do not have the luxury of spontaneous outbursts."

She didn't respond. The sting in her cheek was fiercer than ever before.

"If you are done playing the child," he continued, his face free of emotions, "then I suggest you follow me back to the apartment. If you are not… well. I'm certain that I can arrange for a dosage of toxin to be brought up—it's may be late, but it's not _that _late." A peculiar grin crossed his face for a moment, and Bridget looked down jerkily. He began walking briskly from the room, and she followed him without complaint, despite the biting words that were trapped in her mouth.

She swallowed the words and then her pride and hurt, and nothing had ever tasted so bitter.

(-)

The room that they'd been keeping her wasn't far from the apartment, and she carefully memorized each step. Her mind was reeling, something which wasn't uncommon these days; it seemed impossible to be thinking less than ten things, all of which fought for dominance.

The ghastly scar on her cheek kept resurfacing, leaving a sinking feeling in her gut like she'd forgotten about a step on the staircase and her foot had dropped too low too quickly; the little black diary had appealed to her inner detective too late, and she was left wondering what, exactly, it contained. The nightmares chased each other around in her mind—the one with the lights was the worst. She couldn't say if it was a nightmare or a sweet, sweet dream, and that was what scared her the most.

Crane kept silent the entire walk, his feet beating a steady rhythm against the ground, pausing only once to steer her away from a man—_the_ man—that she'd stabbed, the crazy one. His name was on the tip of her tongue—it was something weird, wasn't it? —but Bridget didn't dwell on it. He had disappeared, and the tightness in Crane's jaw had, too.

She apartment was a welcome sight, much to her surprise; the downcast eyes and the faces that were still lined with illogical anger all for her weren't comforting, and any escape from them, even if it meant sharing a living space with Crane, wasn't _so_ bad.

He pulled open the door, motioning blankly for her to enter, and she did, albeit hesitantly. Crane closed the door behind them, brushing up against her shoulder as he walked by, and Bridget let her posture falter, caving in on herself. There was nothing to do except read his stupid books and mourn whatever normalcy she'd lost when the scar had appeared (her looks had been the only thing not wholly changed, the only things she'd been counting on staying the same).

_Be calm,_ she told herself as he disappeared into that room that he so often isolated himself in. The door snapped shut behind him, and she was left with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Part of her wanted to fall to the floor in despair and continue crying, and another part of her wanted a distraction. When she'd accidently added a blue tint to her hair in junior high, she'd spent the entirety of the night watching bad sitcoms and thrillers a bit too gun-heavy for her to turn the volume up so that she could hear what the characters were even saying. The scar was infinitely worse than that though, and God only knew how much it would take to remove it from her mind.

Moving towards the couch softly, she picked up a textbook that contained the definitions of different sorts of fears. Fear of birds, of clowns, of bats, of death, of fire. Bridget didn't bother reading the actual text; no, it was much too wordy and filled with terms that she only half understood. Journalism was her thing now, not psychology.

The writing had been illegible before, but when she squinted and pressed her glasses very, very close to her eyes, it became slightly clearer. The scratched out words were still an utter mystery, and she flicked back to the earlier chapters, which contained the greater portion of the ripped out pages. Crane's notes seemed personal sometimes; phobias were underlined and applied to names, and Bridget wondered if he knew what they were afraid of because he'd forced it out of them. The name 'Bo Griggs' was underlined in faded ink, circled three times, surrounded by question marks and something that looked to be numbers—a date, maybe? The last number was indubitably '94, in any case, and Bridget made sure to take note of that.

The little black diary ran through her mind, and she wondered fleetingly if it belonged to Crane. But she brushed the thought aside; what would he have to write about? He cared little for emotions or feelings, and most memories involved those. Unless it was a collection of his test subjects and their reactions—_people like me_, she thought with a deep pang in her chest—he'd have no reason for keeping a _diary_.

She continued her reading, sometimes stopping to read about the phobias that were at least semi-interesting until her eyes crossed with boredom.

The next fascinating thing came leisurely after she'd snapped out of a half-sleeping state. Another name—female probably, seeing as it ended in 'y'—had been scratched out so violently that the ink bled through to the other side of the paper. In certain places, it'd torn clean through. The name wasn't connected to any word, and Bridget almost wanted to ask Crane what made that person so different from the countless others in his book. But she wasn't an idiot and the distraction was working, so she wasn't particularly suicidal either, so instead of doing anything, she continued reading. (It must've been a purely coincidental that the name was on page 94).

She turned back a couple more pages, and found the word hydrophobia underlined in reasonably newer ink. She traced the thin line that linked to a name with her finger and felt a chill running down her spine. In his outstandingly indecipherable chicken scratch handwriting, there it was—

_Bridget Avery_.

She snapped the book shut, dropped it abruptly and ran to her room.

(-)

In the bathroom mirror, so late at night that it could be better described as dawn, Bridget traced over the poorly stitched cut, snapping the lights on and then off repeatedly. When it was dark, it didn't look quite as awful; that wasn't saying much though. When it was light, she looked like one of Bane's scarred, angry soldiers or one of Crane's psychotic, haunted workers. Tears were welling in her eyes again, and she blinked them back, jerking the light off and staring into the mirror hollowly.

She was a ghost in the pale moonlight, and quickly, she left the bathroom and walked into the living room.

She slinked towards the couch, shimmying her arms further up into one of the t-shirts brought to her by the mercenary. The newest had arrived when she was still… whatever had been happening to her that caused her to lose consciousness and succumb to the toxin so very, very often. One was grey and the other was brown, but they were both painfully plain and a size too large; ideal for sleeping, or simply for comfort. Back before everything had been ruined by Bane, she'd sleep in her father's t-shirts and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms. The bottoms had been replaced by one pair of ratty sweatpants and the t-shirts most likely belonged to the dead (she tried not to dwell on that) and couldn't replace the familiar feeling or cologne that covered her father's clothes, but it was close enough to home that she could've sobbed.

Crane was there, on the couch, and for a moment, her breathe caught in her throat. But he didn't speak and his head was resting against the back of the couch at an awkward angle. A sort of sick hope swelled in her stomach before she realized that he was only sleeping. She'd never seen the man doing anything remotely human, nor had she seen any evidence.

She tiptoed closer, the curiosity embedded deep within her spurring her forward. Each footstep sent her heart into a flurried frenzy of beats, and she tried her best to steady her breaths; she felt rather like she was doing something wrong. Which, maybe she was—Crane hardly displayed any emotions in front of her. His face was a constant stony mask… and that was why she needed to see the vulnerability that took over his face when he slept.

Everything human had a weak side, she knew, even if it was only while they slept.

His face wasn't as innocent as she'd hoped—though that could've been because she was so terrified of him. He looked… less. His blue eyes weren't there to harder his look, to make him seem like an alien; they were simply too bright to be natural. His dark hair wasn't standing on end, and Bridget realized how young he was. The entire time, she'd been thinking that he was ageless. Bad men always seemed out of time for some reason. No one had ever been able to place an age on the Joker, either. But it was clear to her now that he couldn't have been much older than thirty five. He didn't have many wrinkles, really, and whatever few that he did have were hardly deep enough to be called _wrinkles_. He possessed no smile lines, no dimples, adding all the more to the youth that so many adopted while they slept.

Bridget didn't look at him for long, not truly; she counted his breaths, praying silently that they would fall short.

For some reason, she found herself nodding off, too. She wondered how upset he would be if he woke up and found her next to him, sleeping—or worse, if she woke him up with her screams. Would he interrogate her about her fears, make her describe her nightmare, or would he be furious with her for waking him up? Neither option was desirable, and Bridget—taking one last, fleeting look at the boyish expression on his face as her own face clouded with doubt and disgust—stood and marched into her own bedroom.

The bed was unmade, and not for the first time, she wondered who'd slept there before her. Another captive? Or just a politician, a star, someone important? These rooms were for the elite; not just anyone got to stay in city hall.

Bridget found herself flooding with bitter laughter. _Not just anyone, _she thought, pulling the blankets over her until she was swallowed in them. _I'm not just anyone. _Sleep came for her soon after, wrapping its dark arms around her and swallowing her whole.

(-)

He woke up to the sound of her screaming.

Something akin to pity filled his gut, but he brushed it aside and, cold and careless, left the apartment before he would be bid a joyless "good morning" by his captive.

He had no time for her false courtesies, no matter how much he liked her screaming.

(-)

_Author's Note: _Erm... hi. I know that this update is pretty random, and if you're reading it, than thank you so much for not completely abandoning this story the way I did for a little while. I'm really fickle, and I tend to jump around from fandom to fandom on a whim (I got kind of sidetracked by The Walking Dead. Tried to write a fanfiction, but... zombies + me = nightmares). Anyway, this chapter is kind of filler-y, but also has some pretty major details in it. All of you hardcore Scarecrow fans probably know what I'm talking about.

The scarring may seem a bit unnecessary to some of you, but before you complain about that, let me explain you a thing: the only way in hell that Crane/Bridget can ever work is if she is completely herself/in her right mind. As hot as Cillian Murphy is, it isn't possible to love someone based on only their looks. And Bridget is a person who is very concerned about her looks and how others perceive her.

THINGS ARE GONNA BE HAPPENING A LOT SOON SO STICK AROUND.

_- Bridget_


	9. Just Eggs

**_Trigger warnings: _**Mentions of rape, sexism, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, emotional/physical abuse, manipulation and murder, and gun violence.

* * *

Chapter Eight

There are two birds in your head, raven and crow, and only one of them is yours. A ghost and a robot doing battle, singing like telephones, the phone is ringing, a headache word. You are dancing with the birdcage girl, banging your head against a cage that isn't there.

— Richard Siken, Black Telephone

* * *

The steady sound of water pelting against porcelain filled the apartment, and Dr. Jonathan Crane — no, Judge Crane — felt nothing. The water was scalding hot, like liquid fire against his back, but he didn't adjust the temperature, nor did he wince. He didn't care about the temperature, didn't care that his back would most likely be lobster red all day; what was plaguing his mind was much more intriguing than the fact that he was wasting what little hot water flowed into city hall.

His captive was quite entertaining, if somewhat irritating. Her reactions to the toxin were… questionable. Of course, the small dosage of the antidote given to her by one of Bane's people had stifled the severity of her delusions, but still. Any normal person would be permanently altered by the toxin at this point in the metaphorical game; but his little captive Miss Avery was infuriatingly unresponsive. She was constantly nervous, her hands usually trembling, but she hadn't complained of hallucinations, nor had he noticed the tell-tale behavior of a schizophrenic. In fact, the only thing that was wrong with her was the lack of a mental disorder.

Ever since the attack — hardly an attack, really; it was more like a lesson — the girl had grown quieter and quieter, avoiding him with more ease. He cared little. The less she was around, the better. It was high time that she discovered she wasn't a necessity. Miss Avery was quite disposable.

Or so he told himself.

The water beat harder against his skin, reaching the apex of warmth, and he knew that in a moment, it would turn to ice, shocking him from his thoughts. That was the downside of Bane's reign, he decided; the hot water always shut off far too quickly. On the soap rack, he noticed something, and picked it up. A pink hair elastic. He absently toyed with a hair elastic left in the corner by the girl; a few strands of golden hair were knotted around it, and they clung to his hand as the water ran over them. He stared at it for a while, not quite knowing why. The girl had been growing more and more rebellious with each passing day, anger and defiance radiating from every inch of her. It was only a matter of time before he would have to use the toxin on her again; it seemed she was only obedient when frightened.

She'd elicited no fondness from him, but even he could not deny her attractiveness. It could certainly not be called beauty. She was too pale and too… too _something_, always shaky and ashen; the word didn't suit her, not even a little. But there was something almost pretty about her, some memory perhaps of her before Bane had taken Gotham for his own, as if her eyelashes remembered what mascara did and her hair — even badly styled and gone too long without being dyed — seemed to fall nicely no matter what she did. Her smiles were rare and never directed at him, but they brought some life to her face, a semblance of who she used to be. Yes, there was something pretty about her, but that was not for him to admire; she was a test subject, a project, not someone whose attractiveness should be appreciated.

With a sigh, he shut off the shower, wrapped a towel around himself, and turned the light off.

The pink elastic lay on the shower floor, forgotten.

After clothing himself and taking a few moments to ruffle his hair slightly dry — the cold air of the courtroom would no doubt freeze it into comical icicles if he didn't — he meandered into the living room. Gently, he folded himself down onto the couch, picking up one of the textbooks before thinking better of it. The girl had evidently been paging through it — but any and all evidence of his… past behaviors'… had been thoroughly scratched out, leaving nothing but a faded letter and the image of a girl laughing until she was screaming in his head. Jonathan realized with a start that he hadn't thought about her since he'd been freed from Arkham.

Curious.

He tapped his fingers against his leg. Seconds passed, and then minutes, but Crane wasn't thinking. Sometimes, he'd do that; completely empty himself of thought and what little emotions he could still feel. Hollowness, blankness; that was when Jonathan felt the best, when he felt the most in control. If that was sad, the sorrow was lost on him. He was perfectly content to turn it all off if it resulted in power — even if it was only power over himself. Absently, his eyes closed. Relaxation was a rarity in this brave new world that was more doomed than he knew, and he savored the triumph that he was one of the few that was comfortable with Bane's reign.

Well, not as comfortable as he wanted to be; but Bane would hardly grant him more power than he already had as judge. It was a job just for him, where he was totally in control. If he wasn't so busy handing out sentences, he might've been offended by the way that the job had simply been handed to him as an appeasement. Jonathan didn't like to be humored, or bribed, or treated as a child, and Bane was a professional in doing all three to the smaller man.

There was clattering in the kitchen, followed by a loud cry of, "fuck!" and Crane burst out of his thoughts. Reflexively, he'd stood, thinking back to the days of old at the asylum where a curse meant that an inmate was retaliating in a less-than-pleasant way. Before Ra's al Ghul's flowers, before his toxin had been so close to perfect, moments like that would give him a rush much akin to fright; but even then, he never did feel it fully. He was half there and half locked inside of his own mind.

He ghosted into the kitchen to see the girl clutching at her hand, a shattered plate on the ground, the jagged edges coated in her blood.

"Goddammit," she seethed, "God-fucking-dammit."

He wasn't aware that Miss Avery had swear words in her vocabulary, and perhaps that was why his eyebrows raised in shock. But the pool of blood that was collecting in the palm of her hand from a large gash between her middle and pointer finger didn't faze him at all. Collectedly, he yanked a dishtowel from a drawer, grabbed her hand—perhaps a little too harshly, for she winced — and wiped the blood away roughly.

"I can — I can do it," she said, voice starting out strong and ending in something like a whimper. He ignored her, but the girl was not, it seemed, in the humor to be ignored; she yanked the towel from his hands, and stalked off.

It didn't make him angry — nothing made him feel anything, really — but Bridget Avery was one of those who believed they were able to fly until they had fallen, one of those bounce-back types who recovered slowly and came back with more force than before, and so he followed her. She was so easy to brutalize, he noticed clinically as he grabbed onto her shoulders. Far too easy for his jury to attack again; her feeble attempts at breaking free had been boring to the majority of them, and his punishments would ensure that none harmed her.

She was too interesting to die that way.

Her eyes were wide and frightened, and for just a fraction of a second, Jonathan thought of the first time she'd experienced the effects of the toxin, the first time she'd clutched at her throat and convulsed on the ground. It was more interesting a reaction than all of his recent patients combined had had — aside from some middle aged man who had been allergic to some part of the poison, who had died not of fear, but of a ruptured spleen. But the fear left her face, and there she stood, alone with fury dancing in her eyes.

"What do you want?" she snarled, her voice half a whine as she wriggled in his grasp. She held her bleeding hand close to her chest carefully.

"I've already told you, Miss Avery. You are just a test subject. What you want doesn't matter — however, that slice on your hand is quite deep, and it would be a shame if it grew infected. We're running quite low on antibiotics, I'm told. You're a very valuable guinea pig, Miss Avery, and I'd hate to see you gravely ill. So either give me your hand, or risk an uglier death than I could ever deliver."

Bridget gawked at him. The nerve in her eyes was flickering, and she looked down at her hand cautiously. "Be gentle," she snapped at him, allowing him to take her hand.

It wasn't so bad as he'd thought, and the bleeding had ceased, mostly. The harsh crimson was such a contrast to the ghostly pallor of her skin, and for a moment, Crane forgot that Bridget Avery was in fact a living girl. Not incautiously, he wiped the remaining smear of blood from her hand.

"That hurts," she groused under her breath, and he let it slip away as if he hadn't heard her, though he didn't quite know why.

"You'll be bandaging this yourself," he said. It wasn't a question, and she felt no need to reply. Her usually downcast eyes met his for one defiant and fleeting moment, before she stood and ghosted away.

The blood was on his hands now, warm and red and drier with each passing second. He sighed, exasperated. What an annoyance this would be to wash away.

(-)

Her fists pounded against a still pillow, and from behind her, the mercenary gently adjusted her arms.

"Higher," the woman said. "You'll be slouching if you go any lower, and that could throw off your posture, which could easily result in injury." She eyed Bridget's bandaged hand cautiously. "Or the reopening of a pre-existing injury."

Bridget wanted to complain — they'd been at this for hours, and she'd done nothing completely correct yet, and besides, she ached _everywhere _— but she held her tongue and straightened up. Her back felt stiff and knotted and Bridget fought not to groan. How did this mercenary live a life of this? How did one decide that their one calling in life was beating the ever-loving shit out of someone, and how did one set about to train themselves under such grueling conditions?

But that wasn't what was really plaguing her mind.

Her dark haired friend was the one thing that she couldn't stop thinking about. _Give me time to think_, Bridget had requested, but there wasn't any time — not anymore, or so it seemed. But it was Maggie, fellow part time librarian and fellow not-yet-twenty-year-old survivor of this bullshit, and there was no way that she was letting her friend do this alone.

She was worried, though, that her friend would carry it out before she could send her the message that she was ready and willing to help. If nothing else, the attack had cleared one thing in her mind: she, Bridget Rose Avery, was no wailing waif, even if her hands shook no matter how hard she tried to steady them and she still felt a tentative sort of unwillingness whenever she filled the tub with water (it seemed the only way to make the world go silent these days was to be submerged in water).

"It's a two women job, and I need someone on the inside," Maggie had said. How hard could it be to sneak maybe ten people from City Hall?

She remembered the guards that were stationed at every door, the fact that Bane's own right hand man came to check in every second day, and suddenly, it didn't seem so easy anymore.

Feebly, her hand bounced against the pillow, and the mercenary made a sound of disapproval.

"What?" Bridget asked, trying to keep the annoyance that was boiling within her from showing.

"You are not good at this." The woman stated flatly. "You show very little promise. Why do you want to do this, when all it is doing is causing you pain?"

"I've told you why."

"Not in detail."

"To protect myself," Bridget replied noncommittally.

"An admirable reason… but not a long one."

"I don't like long answers," responded Bridget emphatically. The mercenary quirked an eyebrow insistently, and Bridget — who had, for a very long time, wanted someone to listen — decided to trust. "Fine, I'll tell you… but only because you're the only one who has asked me to speak in weeks. I'm tired of… of being told what to do. By people — no, by _horrible_ people — who only want to destroy. I am done being a pawn and Crane's guinea pig girl. If we're all burning in a few months and all that'll be left of everything and everyone I have ever loved is ashes, I am _not_ going bruised and scared and shaking. I want to be stronger than that. I want to be better than that."

"There's nothing wrong with being scared when it's the only thing keeping you alive," the woman pointed out, and Bridget ran a frustrated hand through her hair.

"I know that. I know that. But all this shaking and screaming and crying is not who I _am_. And this… this is not how I want to be during my last year alive. And I need you to teach me how to — how to punch and how to hurt and how to kill, if that's what I need to do to stay safe and alive and _myself_, because God fucking _knows_ that this person standing in front of you is not who I was the day I took that little girl's place."

She felt the woman's eyes studying her critically as she panted, out of breath from speaking so heatedly.

"Is that everything, then?"

_Tell her about Maggie_, a voice inside her urged.

"Yeah."

The woman did not look convinced.

"We will continue tomorrow night so that you can collect yourself. Sleep or do not sleep, but ensure that you are a convincing actress if you hear him come in. Judge Crane is in a rather foul mood tonight."

"He has moods? Don't moods require emotions?" Bridget grumbled. For a moment, it looked as though the woman was going to smile, but it faltered on her lips and her face was stone again. Bridget couldn't stop thinking about Maggie's plan. _I barely know where I'm going, _she thought, _there's too many stairs and too many guards, and I've seen almost every floor. _

Maggie was smart, but even smart people grew desperate after witnessing what Bridget could imagine her friend had witnessed, and the mercenary hadn't betrayed her yet.

"Careful with your words," she chided.

"Right, right — I forgot, I'm not supposed to voice any opinions."

"What is that expression…? Sarcasm is the lowest form of intelligence."

"Whoever said that was clearly only upset because they had difficulty understanding sarcasm," she snarked. The mercenary did smile that time — fleetingly, but still, her mouth twisted upwards pleasantly and Bridget was surprised to see two dimples in her cheeks. She was pretty when she smiled, Bridget noticed, but no prettier than she looked when she was shouting orders or helping her with her stance. Like everything the woman did though, it was frozen and hard and hiding something. Bridget didn't mind.

"Goodnight," the woman said, once again professional and cold. She turned on her heel and opened the door.

_Tell her about Maggie, stop her from leaving and tell her_.

Her heart was in her throat and her tongue itched, and she vaguely recalled how Amy's hand had felt in her own. It felt as though it'd happened a million years ago, a distant blur of a memory, and Bridget bit her tongue. She didn't know the woman's name. She didn't know anything about her, didn't know if she could trust her or if telling her anything would cost her life and Maggie's and everyone else in that small group. But without this woman there would be no chance at all…

_Come on, Avery, do the right thing one more time. _

"Wait," she blurted, and the woman turned around to regard her. "There's… there's something else you need to know. Come back in."

"He will be back very soon," the woman warned lowly. But she came in despite her own warning, softly closing the door behind her. There was something odd about the care she took to close the door, something gentle and almost cautious in her eyes, and Bridget was hit with the startling realization that this woman had had a life before being a mercenary. Siblings, parents, laughter, tears — this woman was the same as any other person.

It took a moment for it to click in that the same went for Crane.

"I — look. I know you're helping me, but… I have this friend. A good friend — and I don't have a lot of good friends. And I need you to help her too." She took in a deep breath, watching the mercenary carefully.

The woman's face remained impassive, and Bridget felt a jolt of fear rush through her. Perhaps this was a horrible idea; perhaps she would regret asking for help. If she died because of this — if _Maggie_ died because of this —

An all too familiar tremor started in her fingertips, and she pushed her thoughts aside. No. No, the mercenary would _help_ her; they were friends, or as close to being friends as either of them would ever be now, and friends didn't betray each other, didn't say "no" when someone's life was in danger…

_You said no to Maggie at first_, a guilty voice reminded her, and she swallowed, mustering her courage.

"I mean — I mean you can say no and all, but just… just don't tell anyone. There are good people here that can't leave, and… it is my firm belief that they should be let go. Maggie is one of those good people."

"Is that it then?"

"Yeah, that's it."

There was a long silence, and Bridget could've sworn that she could hear her own heart beating. _Come on, _she thought, _come on, say something_.

The other woman took in a long breath, licking her lower lip. "You are aware that this is incredibly unsafe, correct?"

Bridget nodded hesitantly, and the woman shook her head and gave a half-roll of her eyes, clearly exasperated.

"And I am safe to assume that you know the penalty for the actions of myself and your friend will be death?"

"I know what I'm asking."

"Then you know that I can't help."

Bridget couldn't stop the pathetic whine that burst from her mouth, but she did manage to refrain from stomping her foot. "Please," she said. "Please, help me. Help _us. _You're — you're different from them, from all of the others; you _care_, at least a little bit, I k_now_ you do! You can't… you can't let her—them—die like this! They should be with their family, with people who care, not trapped in this hellhole with that… that _mob_…"

It came back to her then. The second toxin induced nightmare, the one with the wolves that inhabited Crane's jury surging down on her like the sea, grabbing her and pulling her apart like beasts. And that was what they _were_, all of them; animals. They possessed one urge and one urge only, and that was a need to survive. Their self preservation had caused a sort of disregard for others that came from years and years of wanting revenge — but instead, they received brutality deemed justice by a madman. _They are human but they are monsters, _Bridget thought, _and they are terrifying. _

"Are you so sure that you're talking about your friend, Miss Avery?"

The curt usage of what Crane called her — laced with the same mock-respect that he used — made her snap into reality, and she stared at the mercenary with eyes wide with both anger and hurt and fear.

"Of course I'm sure," she replied, confused.

The woman blinked and smirked, and Bridget felt a chill running clean through her bones.

"I shouldn't have asked," she said, defeated. "I'm sorry."

A beat. For a moment, Bridget felt relieved; if they never did try to break out, then there would be an even slimmer chance that Maggie would get hurt. Her friend was smart enough to know not to lash out at mercenaries, and more than capable of covering her tracks. _But still_, she cautioned herself, and she wanted to scream because who she used to be would've never considered the negative, would've just assumed Maggie's safety.

_That girl is dead no matter if I stay here or leave with Maggie_.

"…I'll consider it."

"Excuse me?"

"I'll consider helping you. Give me a night to think it over."

"I — you're — you're serious about this?"

The woman, standing in the doorway and preparing to walk away, looked amused. "Yes."

"Well," said Bridget loudly, calling after the woman's retreating form, "thank you."

(-)

It was about quarter after three when he finally entered the apartment, blood on his fingertips and a feeling of disappointment deep in his stomach. Another one of his test subjects, dead at the hands of one of Bane's more eager men; the test subject had only been lashing out, temporarily jerked from his hallucinations into a homicidal—and more importantly, alert — mindset. Of course, the first person he'd lunged at had been Jonathan, and Bane's man had shot him down without a second's hesitation.

And then he — perhaps not as himself as he was now — had touched his hand to the wound and, with a sigh, asked someone to clean up the mess. It was against the health code to leave corpses around in the workplace, after all.

What a pity the death had been, though — the man had only just started to be helpful.

He surveyed the apartment.

Bridget Avery was, for once, not passed out on the sofa. There was a light trailing down from her bedroom door and into the hallway, illuminating him and creating ghostly shadows that trailed across the floor and walls.

He moved towards the room carelessly — there was a small vial of the toxin (the new and improved injection no less) in the pocket of his jacket, just begging to be used, and there was no better person to experiment on than Bridget.

_Miss Avery_, he corrected himself. First names were far too personal, too… friendly. There was nothing friendly between them.

The light grew stronger the closer he moved to her.

He peered inside the room, standing in the doorway. The girl was lying across the bed, blonde hair strewn messily across a white pillow. Her bare legs were covered in goose bumps. She'd fallen asleep without blankets around her, and was shivering. In another life — perhaps one without a blonde train wreck and a hunchbacked old woman — he might've pulled the covers over her, might've let her sleep. But this was not another life; this was right here and now, and the toxin was in his pocket, so accessible but somehow so far away.

Her eyes were moving quickly underneath her eyelids, and she mumbled something. Her foot twitched. Crane watched it all hungrily, as if it was all a part of his experiments.

The girl let out another mumble, louder this time, and her mouth was set in a hard line. Nightmares, he realised, and he felt a jolt of pride running through him. That was where her fear had manifested — in nightmares.

Her eyes tightened, and Crane stared at her, desperate to remember it all. Nightmares had always been fascinating to him as a boy; they were a much more natural way to observe fear, but hardly as interesting to him now as a grown man.

That was when the girl shot up, a scream on her lips and terror in her eyes. Crane tried very hard not to smile.

Panting, her eyes searched the room, and when they found him, they widened in shock. Less than a second later, she was shimmying underneath the blankets, pulling them tightly around her chest. "I was — I mean — why are you here?"

He ignored her question, slightly irritated that he'd been caught, and more than irritated at her boldness. It was a possibility that in her half-asleep state she'd forgotten her situation — but she had been growing more and more careless, letting biting remarks fall from her lips on a daily basis, and such behaviour could only be abided for so long. "Did I interrupt a good dream, Miss Avery?"

Her jaw tightened and her eyes narrowed, and she shook her head almost imperceptibly.

"Oh? A nightmare, then?"

"You know what you interrupted," she whispered, barely audible over the sound of the rain outside. It beat against the windows, rattling them, and the wind let out a howl as he let her words sink in. Her voice was deeper with sleep, and gravelly, and far, far too bold.

"Careful," he cautioned. He brought his hands to his pocket, bringing out the small needle with extreme care, letting the light bounce off the glass. "We wouldn't want to have to use this."

Her glare faltered and her face was once again that of a scared child. That was only for a moment, though, before a sort of wall was built in her dark eyes. Blue, he noticed, but almost grey in this light. "No," she agreed solemnly, her voice a stone. "We wouldn't want that."

_She's playing a game. _

"I'll let you get back to sleep, then. Sweet dreams, Miss Avery."

Back turned, he retreated from the room with a smirk on his face.

"Same to you, Judge Crane."

(-)

When Bridget Avery appeared the next morning in court at his side, stitches up her cheek and her spine ramrod straight, a whisper broke out. They wrapped around him like a blanket, and without a second of hesitation, he banged the gavel down, shouting, "Order!"

They fell into silence, louder than any of the words they'd been hissing to each other.

His jury was composed of the mindless and the mad (in both senses of the word) and the unwilling, but they were all his zombies, his bumbling followers. Some had come for Bane and some had come to hide from the brave new world given to them, but none of them could leave, not even if they wanted to. They stared up at him with a combination of reverence and fear and Jonathan bit back a smile. The sweetest thing that had come from Bane taking over the city was not getting out of Arkham; it was power, the power that came from deciding the fates of those who'd persecuted him for years.

"Today, we will begin with someone I am sure some of you are familiar with — Mr William Earle!" His voice boomed and crackled and the jury stirred to life, shouting and hollering sentences already.

The one time runner of Wayne Enterprises had done little to nothing to carry on the legacy that Thomas and Martha Wayne; he cared little for anyone less rich than him, taking everything and leaving nothing for anyone else. Bruce Wayne had been the slightest bit better, apparently, but Crane didn't care about the rich; as long as he was in charge, he didn't need to care about anything.

The man was dragged into the room. He was old now, with deep wrinkles and a deep frown. His clothes were ragged and dirty, but obviously, they'd once been expensive. "You can't do this," he was shouting, "_you can't do this_!"

He didn't quiet down when he was forced into the chair, his face turning bright red with the force of his voice.

That was met by a chuckle, but Crane was in no humour for laughter today, and so he spoke the question they were all waiting for, "You've done your crimes, and now all that's left is for you to pay for them. Death or exile, Mr Earle?"

The older man wasn't listening to him, though; he was shouting still, so loud that he could hear nothing else, and Crane motioned to one of the mercenaries to take care of it for him. The resounding sound of the gun hitting the man filled the courtroom, and even the chanting jury fell silent. Mr William Earle's expression was one of pain, but he made no sound.

"Your decision, Mr Earle?"

The man would take the coward's path, that was evident to Crane — death was too uncertain for a man like William Earle, and though what "exile" meant was only spoken of in whispers, it had to seem much kinder than death to the man, as it had to all of those before him. He wished that he could follow them sometimes, to see their faces as they realized that they would have to tread across the cracking ice. None had made it so far.

"E-exile," he stammered, and the court roared in agreement. Only those ignorant to what "exile" meant chanted for death. Why take the easy route when you could take the one that planted the seed of hope and then dug it up just as it began to sprout?

"Exile, then!" he shouted, banging down the gavel.

The rest of the day's sentences passed in a blur; there were no great protests, no memorable faces. Bridget — who seemed to have been rendered fearful of large crowds, especially Crane's jury — sat stiffly the whole time, protesting little each time someone chose "death". It seemed as though she _had _learned something from the attack. Bane did not linger in the back of the courtroom as he had taken to doing, and Crane wasn't certain why; the rebels had been dealt with. What more did Bane have to do? He'd conquered Gotham, removed Batman from the situation, and the only other bother that he had in his life was a captive rebel who didn't know when to give up hope. And she was only a child; really, how much trouble could one person cause?

Bridget moved from the courtroom quickly that day, standing the second he dismissed the court and marching off alone. Two of the mercenaries — one female, one male — trailed her after looking to him, and with his nod of allowance, moved behind her. The girl was thoughtless sometimes. Had she not just been attacked by a mob of angry people? Had she not recently thrown a large temper tantrum about said attack? She did so little to prevent another assault that Crane almost wondered if she even cared what happened to herself.

He stood, brushing his hands against the desk — cold and oak and far more expensive than the one he'd had at Arkham — and left the courtroom, his heart feeling heavy though he didn't know why.

(-)

The diary was thick and leather and covered in dust, but Bridget clutched it tighter than she'd clutched anything in her life.

It couldn't be his, and there was a large chance that it had nothing to do with him at all, but that didn't stop her from wanting it, from pleading with the female mercenary to make a pit-stop on the way back to the apartment. Her agreement was reluctant — it was actually her male counterpart that had allotted her to go in the first place — and came with the single condition that Bridget "moved fast and without an incident". _Incident _meaning without slipping, tripping or falling, which was much more than Bridget could manage on a good day. As a kid, she'd thought that being clumsy was endearing, and had tried very hard to incorporate it into her every day behaviours, "accidentally" stubbing her toe any time she could. But eventually, clumsiness had turned into a very real part of her, and it wasn't quite so endearing when she couldn't slip back into poised movements.

But she _did _get the diary, without _incident_ and in only two minutes. This was partly because the sight of the room turned her stomach, made her skin crawl. Only two days before, she'd woken up asking for her mother. Only two days before, she'd barricaded herself inside those very walls and cried until she screeched with laughter.

She shivered, and the female mercenary looked at her.

"We should hurry if we want to get back before Crane catches up," she commented idly, but there was real worry in her eyes. The woman looked at the leather book cautiously, as if it contained the ingredients to a poison, and Bridget clutched it tighter to her chest. The male mercenary with them was staring at the woman like she was insane, and Bridget felt a knife twist in her gut. She'd been meaning to ask the woman about a jacket, some mittens, a knit sweater... anything, really, to keep out the shockingly cold needles of air that filled the courtroom. She rethought it the second the man had followed her friend, and had spoken very little save for requesting a small stop in the room that she'd been in before. She found it hard to trust anyone, these days.

"You're right," she conceded quietly. Keeping her tone in check, that's what it was all about; if she came off as too kind, too willing, their secret would be obvious.

Bridget didn't want to cause another death, nor did she want to lose one of the few friends she had in City Hall.

Their pace was steady and fast, and the woman mercenary checked the apartment once before she let Bridget alone — Bridget didn't ask why. She didn't think she wanted to know. The man left before the woman, and there was an unspoken "we'll talk later" between the two friends, before the mercenary took her leave, and Bridget was left alone with her thoughts and the diary.

She left the living room, switching out the lights as she moved, and trekked into the bedroom. The unmade bed looked appealing, even though it couldn't have been later than seven o'clock. But Bridget was determined to stay awake, and so she left the light on, half closing the door — if Crane got home before she figured out whether this diary would tell her anything about him or not, she wanted to be able to hide it under the mattress, or somewhere equally as safe. Bridget wasn't sure what made her want the diary, didn't know why she wanted to know anything about him. He was a monster. An inexcusable, unapologetic monster. He would never be the "misunderstood criminal" that some news channels used to draw in impressionable and naive watchers, and he wouldn't be the innocent. But she couldn't deny that one of the reasons why she wanted to know his origins was because she wanted for him to have a damn good explanation for the horror she'd experienced.

_There's a chance_, she thought for the umpteenth time, _that this will tell me nothing about him_. _There's a chance that this isn't his, that it belongs to someone completely unrelated to him, that there's nothing terrible inside these pages. _ Crane had been in Arkham or Blackgate for years — Bridget had always been more interested in the Joker's whereabouts than the Scarecrow's — and it was likely that all possessions he had had been confiscated and locked away somewhere.

_But Bane freed Arkham and Blackgate, and Bane _gave_ Crane this position and besides, he has his mask. That would've been confiscated, too. Come on, Bridget. Buck up and open the goddamned book. _

She did.

The first page is an abundance of doodles. Flowers. Hearts. The name "Griggs" — she wondered if the name had anything to do with Bo Griggs, the one she'd found in one of Crane's books — was circled with hearts, underlined, and then scratched out, almost angrily. There was a tear from where the pen had pressed to hard — an angry slash — and Bridget ran her fingers over it. When she closed her eyes, she could almost feel the hurt.

She turned the page.

(-)

The lights in the kitchen were the only ones on when he entered the apartment. Bridget Avery seemed to have a habit of turning the light off in every room that she wasn't in, and absent-mindedly, he wondered if she was one of those eco-friendly types.

He was tired and irritable, and the sound of clinking and Bridget's lilting voice — was she singing to herself? — grated on his nerves. Bane's right hand man, a surprisingly ghostlike man, had showed up simply to tell him not to bring his captive to court the next day. When Crane asked why, the man had simply smirked, and told him that Crane did not have enough _authority_ to ask such questions. As if Crane didn't dole out justice daily. As if he didn't have power.

His fists clenched instinctively, so tightly that his knuckles went white.

(Jonathan Crane could deny that Bane had power over him, but he couldn't deny the all too familiar itch beneath his skin, the feeling of something dark, of something that thrived on fear).

Decidedly, he walked towards the kitchen. The humming noise of Bridget's voice was growing louder with each step he took, and he could almost make out the lyrics —

"...don't know what you got 'til it's — _oh_!"

He smirked. There was something almost amusing about catching her off guard, though he wasn't sure whether it was the way her eyes widened or the way her cheeks reddened with embarrassment. Jonathan wondered how hard she'd shatter if she found out about what happened to all those she'd given exile.

"Are you enjoying yourself, Miss Avery?"

There were eggs sizzling on a pan on the oven — burning, maybe — and Bridget Avery was staring at him as though in shock. "I—I'm only making eggs," she stammered. It seemed as though she could never speak without stammering, or fumbling her words. Jonathan wondered if her speech had been like that before his toxin, or if it had manifested afterwards.

If she ever warmed up to him — an unlikely idea, but not an entirely implausible one — he would ask.

"Hmm," he said, and she watched him carefully, cautiously. Bridget's eyes — normally downcast — were meeting his again.

It was almost disorienting.

Bridget didn't speak to him as she moved to the cupboard, taking out two plates. They scraped together and his jaw clenched. Noises like those had always reminded him of something he'd rather forget (_a grandmother with an attack and a barn and a scared little boy_). For a moment, he thought he caught gooseflesh spreading over her arms. He watched as she scooped two heaps of scrambled eggs onto each plate, turning and holding out one to him.

_Strange_. He quirked an eyebrow and she sighed.

"It's not poisoned, if that's why you're not taking it. I'd rather not kill anyone else." Her voice was only a murmur, but it echoed around the empty apartment.

He still didn't take the plate. This was not like Bridget, not like the trembling girl who'd scarcely eaten since coming to City Hall. _Not coming,_ he reminded himself, _she was dragged here with someone something-or-other. _

She looked like she wanted to say something, but instead slid the plate onto the counter next to him, never breaking eye contact. There was something incontrovertibly rebellious about her unblinking eyes, the unwavering refusal to look away.

"Just in case you... change your mind," she explained, still looking directly at him. Then, with all the haste of someone running late, she marched away in the direction of her room.

The flouncing blonde hair was enough to bring to mind a name he'd tried to forget. His gut twisted at the thought of her. No. No, he had no pity or sympathy for her, no remorse for what he'd done. What happened to Sherry had been his fault, but he didn't _care_. The knife in his gut was for some other reason.

Perhaps he was hungry after all.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Wow, I am super sorry for dropping off the face of the earth. I had exams, and then after that I was gone to a wedding/family reunion (which took up a week), and after that, I really have no excuse. But I'm back now, and I solemnly swear, updates _will _be more regular. Sidenote for anyone who cares: I am going with the Scarecrow: Year One backstory, but only _kind_ of. I'm definitely tweaking things so they're more to my liking and more helpful to his characterization and the plotline.

I hope you guys haven't lost interest because of my lack-of-regular-posting, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter, because it was the biggest asshole to write!

—Bridget


	10. Goodbyes and Fine Lines

******_Trigger warnings: _**Mentions of rape, sexism, **suicidal thoughts*,** suicide attempts*, emotional/physical abuse, manipulation and murder, and gun violence.

*Towards the end of this chapter there is a scene that deals with these very heavily. If you wish to continue reading it, I would advise your to stop reading just before the third "(-)" to avoid any/all mentions.

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

"But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling."  
― Margaret Atwood

The morning was cold and clear and snowless, and Bridget stood in the window, watching the ground for some indication of life. According to the mercenary, Bane's men practically drove everyone who came to the City Hall looking for warmth away, and after a while, they'd stopped coming. Bridget wished they hadn't. Knowing that people were still trying would be nice.

She forced herself to stop thing about other people. Those sorts of thoughts often led to her friends, to Amy, and to her family... she emptied her mind and focused on her morning, mentally retracing all the steps she'd taken since she'd woken up. The floor had been cold, but enough to jar her from her foggy thoughts of the nights nightmares. She'd peeked into the bathroom, and, seeing that it was empty, busied herself with the morning routine she'd carried out since she was a child, meticulously brushing her hair through with her fingers and putting a dollop of tooth paste on the tip of her finger. Crane hadn't been so kind as to procure a tooth brush for her. She'd debated whether or not to chance taking a shower, but decided against it, hoping that perhaps Crane would continue sleeping for another hour or two so that she could read Sherry's diary.

Then Bridget had moseyed into the kitchen, wishing that there were tea bags in the apartment, and stared at the plate in the sink. Empty.

Suspiciously, she opened the cupboard under the sink where the garbage bag was kept — the whole revolution thing had lead to a belief amongst everyone (even Crane) that recycling would no longer be an issue — and found no trace of the eggs.

The thing with the eggs had been born of passive aggression more than kindness, but she couldn't deny the sad satisfaction that had filled her when she'd seen the empty plate. It wasn't cleaned, but she wasn't his mother and she certainly wasn't his caretaker, and so she left it there in the sink.

Then, she noticed, there was snow in the air. Light and swirling and pleasant, and she wished with a dull ache that she wasn't holed up inside the City Hall with a psychopath. Her thoughts went to her menace of a sister, who would've dragged her outside clad in a ski pants and mittens and hats they'd bought at a craft show and thrown snowballs at her until she pleaded for mercy. The mutual dislike she and her sister had shared for years had come to a close because of Bane, because of this whole bomb thing, and Bridget felt a pang deep in her chest. What a wonderful, brave, anxiety-ridden girl Maria was.

The sound of footsteps — light and distant, but still there — stirred her from her observing, and she twisted her neck around slightly to catch a peek of Crane. He was much different now than he'd seemed in the diary of Sherry Squires; she'd mentioned him once, fleetingly, while describing her Advanced English class and the students she shared it with. She'd called him nervous and quiet and somehow still arrogant, wearing clothes too big and too heavy for the heat of mid-September. Crane had kept the arrogance and ditched both the clothes that were too big and the nervousness, and Bridget stared at him — a stare that many a friend had referred to as "off-putting".

He quirked an eyebrow at her, and Bridget turned her head back to regard the snow.

"Good morning," she offered, and her words echoed, dragging out long until she thought he might not reply.

"Mm," he said in response.

"How eloquent," she wanted to snap. But perhaps she'd already toed the line too much — she felt she had, at least — and instead kept silent, watching the snowflakes drift down the meet with the white already coating the ground.

"Have you never seen snow before, Miss Avery?" He asked flatly.

Bridget bit back her annoyance, turning her head and allowing herself to give him a small smile. She wished very much that she could — politely — strangle him. "No, I have. I was raised in Canada. It's just — nice to see something..." she wanted to say normal, but her tongue would not allow her, "...familiar."

"Not a Gotham citizen by birth?" There was little interest in his tone, and Bridget felt no surprise, no offense. Why would he care about anything to do with her anyway? She was the only compassionate one in this apartment, and she was faking it.

"No. My father —" her voice didn't waver but her fingers tightened and she hoped to hell that he wasn't watching her face, "moved us here a few years after the Joker was caught. I was twelve," she added thoughtfully.

There was a beat of silence, and Bridget drank it in. A moment near Crane without him tainting it, without him ruining her solitude. She didn't want to be reminded of court, of the fear and the anger... or of how much she could hate when she had to.

"And how old are you now?" His voice was still flat, and Bridget turned to regard him. He was looking at her, something almost curious in his eyes.

"Eighteen," she replied, and he quirked an eyebrow.

"You seem older," he commented noncommittally, and Bridget shrugged.

"Haven't you heard the expression 'age is just a number'?"

He smirked, speaking no more, and Bridget gave on last, longing look to the outside world. She wondered briefly if Crane would ever soften enough to allow her one last frolic outside before the decision of the triggerman was made. She hoped he would; the air in City Hall was already stale to her, and the scenery was all the same. It was all brown and hardly modern and dreary enough to imbed her with a permanent feeling of morbidity in her gut. Then again, that feeling might've been because she was being held prisoner by a psychopath as the fate of Gotham lay in the hands of some random citizen.

(Though after meeting the part-man-part-monster that was Bane, she doubted that whoever was holding the trigger would do the opposite of what Bane wanted. There was no authority in Gotham to match his).

She turned from the window heavily, letting her bare feet plod against the cold floor.

"I thought you were enjoying the familiarity," commented Crane.

Bridget didn't turn to face him, didn't look him in the eyes, but her heart was racing with hope. "Don't we have to go to court?"

"Not we — I. You will be staying here today."

_Maggie_, she thought, her chest lurching, and she tried to keep her face indifferent, thinking of sorrow and torture and of drowning, of anything to keep the happiness from her face. "Why's that?" she questioned.

His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched and his voice was very low when he sneered, "Remember your place."

Bridget figured that roughly translated into 'I don't know'. She bit her tongue to prevent herself from saying what she was thinking, allowing herself to plan, to think over what she'd just been told. A whole day alone — it was the perfect opportunity to attempt to get Maggie and those others out of City Hall. She hoped that the mercenary would notice her absence in court — the woman was usually there, stationed as a guard — and come to her. There was no other plausible way for Bridget to find her if she wasn't there; she knew very little about the woman, except for the fact that she was left handed and without family or friends. She was loyal to herself and her own beliefs, it seemed, but not to anyone else.

_I can trust her_, Bridget reassured herself as the panic began stirring inside her. _I'm not nearly important enough to be spied on. I _can_ trust her. _

From behind her, the door opened with a click.

"Goodbye," she said tonelessly, loudly. "Have a pleasant day."

She received no response.

(-)

It took the mercenary less than fifteen minutes to reach her. Fifteen minutes that Bridget spent standing up and sitting down, absolutely restless, unable to stop her hands from tapping against her thigh or the windowsill. The woman wasn't even breathless, wasn't even red in the face, even though she ran through the door. Her steps had been so light that Bridget wouldn't have noticed her entrance if she hadn't been sitting on the window ledge that faced the door at that moment, as if she could will the other woman to appear simply with her eyes.

"You should not be sitting there like that," the woman said, her tone bordering on disappointment, "anyone could walk through this door."

"Sorry," Bridget replied, disinterested. The mercenary was watching her with careful eyes, and Bridget shot the woman a shaky smile. "We're... we're going to get my friends now, right?"

"We?" the woman asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah — wait, what do you mean?"

"Miss Avery —"

"Please don't call me that, that's what he —"

"— I am going to try to put this as delicately and inoffensively as possible; I do not trust that you won't draw attention to us. Your face is too well known, and — _ahem_ — you aren't exactly _graceful_, nor are you quick. If this should fail — which, it most likely will — do you think that you being there will help alleviate the consequences?" The woman's mouth was set in a hard line, and Bridget shook her head.

"No, I don't. But what I do think is that my friend isn't going to be stupid enough to put her faith in someone wearing one of those red scarves." Bridget replied, her voice low. The woman's mouth twitched, eyebrow rising for a fraction of a second, and Bridget stared at her determinedly.

"If this gets us killed, it will be on you."

"I know that," Bridget replied cautiously. "I promise you, I know that."

There was a silence, long and loud and humming, and Bridget threaded her fingers together nervously. The mercenary's eyebrows were furrowed, and she was staring at Bridget oddly — a mix of amusement, disbelief and anger in her unfathomably dark eyes.

"Do exactly as I say the second I say it," the woman snapped, and Bridget couldn't stop the smile that broke out onto her face. "Don't question me and don't try to be a hero, and _stay close_. You are coming simply as a sign that I am to be trusted, do you understand?"

"Yes," Bridget said, smiling still, her cheeks stinging pleasantly with the effort of it, as they'd begun to do of late whenever she smiled genuinely, as if the dimples in her cheeks were brands meant to ache each time she showed happiness. "Thank you. You didn't have to do any of this — thank you."

The woman said nothing, and, with a curt nod, turned and marched out the door. Bridget followed her quickly.

The hallways were nearly completely devoid of life. A spider hung down from a web on the ceiling, dangling precariously in front of Bridget's face. Once, she'd been disgusted by them, but she held out her finger and allowed it to land there instead of on the cold, hard floor. It crawled there for a moment, and for some reason, Bridget felt her lips twisting into a small grin.

"Keep up," the woman instructed tersely, and Bridget, biting back her awe, let the spider slip from her finger and hurried after the mercenary.

"You should tell me your name," she said, her voice as quiet as she could make it.

The woman gave her a humourless glance.

"Come on, you know mine. You know a lot about me. Besides, I could get us all killed — shouldn't I know the names of the people I'm endangering?"

"I've killed plenty of people without knowing their names." The woman said dryly.

"Yeah, well, I _haven't_."

"You've killed no one before, girl, it isn't the —"

"Allison Beaumont," she said lowly, her voice hard and strained. The name strangled her throat, made her feel lightheaded. "Anthony Meyer, Colin West, Sarah Arrant, Grace Sudworth, Christopher Lawson —"

"Enough —"

Bridget raised her voice. "Neil Ritter, Julian Knox, and Elle Brown. Do you want me to go on, or is that enough?"

"It isn't the same," the woman repeated evenly. She didn't look at Bridget, didn't look anywhere except for directly in front of her, and Bridget prayed that she hadn't angered the woman — her only hope, really, for getting Maggie out and for surviving this herself.

"Yes," Bridget said quietly, "it is."

"We've both done things, girl, which many people would not be proud of. I am not ashamed of what I am."

"I am," said Bridget, her throat tight.

The gunshots played in the back of her head, the screams and the looks of hopelessness and rage, and she struggled to keep herself from covering her ears. Her hands shook.

_Powerless. _

_Helpless. _

The mercenary was looking at her carefully, footsteps still soft against the ground but slowed, and Bridget was biting her tongue.

"You are not what you think," the woman said quickly. "You are hardly the monster you believe yourself to be."

"I've let people die."

"If you didn't, you yourself would be dead —"

"But I'd die a hero. I wouldn't keep on living to be — what, Crane's favourite guinea pig?"

There was another silence, and Bridget felt her eyes burning.

"You'll know my name when I want you to," the woman said evenly. "Now hurry up. If we're to get your friends out safely and you back into your cage, we'll need to be faster than this."

_Back into your cage_.

Bridget said nothing, swallowing the bitter taste of disappointment and anger as she moved behind the woman.

Down the stairs they moved quickly, Bridget trailing her hand down the railing and feeling the splinters in the wood. They picked at her skin, but she didn't flinch. The mercenary held her head high, dark hair rustling against her coat, and Bridget picked up her pace.

The silence was startling. In the distance, she could hear the all too familiar chanting of "death! Death! Death!", and she suppressed a shudder. Today, she was not Bridget Avery the Judge. Today, she was just herself, albeit more fearful with a heavy feeling in both her bones and chest.

The mercenary abruptly stopped, grabbing the sleeve of Bridget's sweater and shoving her backwards. The movement didn't register with her right away, and the second it did, a sinking feeling began to fill her stomach. _Is she going to hurt me? _She thought, backing up lightly. She had been through too much already — she wouldn't die by the hands of a friend, would she?

"Duck inside that room and stay put until I come back for you. Find somewhere good to hide." The woman hissed.

Bridget did as the woman told her, hand on her throat.

The room was painted maroon, dusty and mostly empty — it appeared as though it'd been sacked, really. There was a blood stain on the cream covered carpet. Bridget held her breath. The sound of voices — hushed but angry — filled the hallway, and she looked around the room as they grew louder, searching for something to duck behind. But there was nothing.

The room held two other doors, and she ducked into the closest one as quickly as she could when she heard the sound of footsteps. Whether they belonged to the mercenary or someone else, Bridget didn't know. Her heart lurched, and she, shaking as she did it, brought a hand to her mouth to stifle the sound of her own breathing. It helped, but just barely — her breath still rattled out loudly, a giveaway of where she hid.

_Breathe more _quietly_. Jesus Christ, Bridget, you're the hide-and-seek champion, you know how to breathe fucking quietly —_

She held in a bitter snort. Yes, she was truly a gifted hide-and-seek player when up against her nearly two year old cousin. Bridget felt a surge of gratefulness that Bane hadn't attacked the city a week earlier; her aunt, uncle and cousin had left the Friday before Gotham had been taken. The thought of any child stuck in this city, the threat of death looming over their heads daily, was enough to turn her stomach and make her want to scream. The faces of both Amy and Maria — one blonde and one brunette, but each pixie-like and young — clouded her thoughts.

_Stop thinking about death, _she told herself as her breathing grew heavier, chest heaving with the weight of sobs she was biting back.

She took in a long, deep breath, moving her hands from her mouth for a single moment to brush her hair from her eyes. She let her hands rest on her chest, feeling the _boom-boom _of her heart, almost steady, almost comforting.

_Focus on something else_.

The room was beige and there were no bloodstains on the floor, but there was a large spatter on the wall, as if someone had been shot and then dragged away. Flies buzzed there, but only there, and for that, she was grateful. Bridget didn't mind bugs. She just preferred for them to exist somewhere _not_ near her, wherever that may be. There was no furniture in the room, save for a small dresser (child sized, though Bridget refused to acknowledge that fact). She wanted to rifle through the drawers, see what was inside — but she couldn't risk making noise and she almost didn't want to know. If there were tiny blue jeans and t-shirts inside, she might scream.

There was a small window in the corner of the room, and from the looks of it, the only view it offered was behind City Hall, where the bridge that led to freedom — blocked, of course — stood tall. Bridget didn't look out; she didn't need to see. She wanted to, but she didn't need to.

The voices grew louder and louder until there were no voices at all. Bridget felt her heart in her throat, shaking as she waited for the inevitable _something_.

The door opened with a creak and she stumbled backwards reflexively, scrambling to get behind the dresser before —

She slipped.

Her body held in the air for a fraction of a second before her butt and hands smacked down against the hard ground, and she let out a low groan of embarrassment, pain and defeat. Her tailbone burned with pain and her wrist — the one she'd broken — ached with the impact. It lasted only a moment before the panic came creeping in, and she whirled around quickly.

But it was only her mercenary, her friend, and she let out a breath that she'd forgotten she was holding.

"What was that about?" she asked, and the woman said nothing, extending a hand to Bridget. There was dirt under her nails and something rust coloured that Bridget refused to recognize as long dried blood, but Bridget took her hand and allowed the woman to hoist her up.

"Nothing of importance," she said easily. "We'll just have to be quicker."

Then there was ice in her stomach, a sick sort of feeling spreading all over her. "Does someone know?" she asked in a whisper. Her hands shook, her legs felt like they might collapse and there was a dull ache in her tailbone. "Did someone find out?"

"You don't suspect me?" the woman questioned, raising an eyebrow.

Bridget let the idea sink in for a moment, and then slowly and deliberately shook her head.

"Should I?"

"No," she said. "Now, quiet."

They walked without words for the rest of the way, pausing once or twice to duck into an empty room as Bane's people patrolled the hallways. The woman kept standing in front of Bridget, as if protecting her, and she wondered idly — if it came down to violence — if the woman standing there would prevent anyone from shooting. But then she thought of Bane and the way he'd said, "_Because he's dead_," and she knew, automatically, that there would be no mercy from anyone.

Slowly, they moved down staircases, the woman directing Bridget all the while as to where it was safe to place her feet and when she should pause, when any noise would draw Bane's people. She didn't trip or stumble, catching herself or slowing each time she felt there was a possibility that she _could_. The woman signalled her to keep moving, to stop, to quit talking or humming nervously. Every movement she made was dictated by the mercenary. It came to Bridget that her entire life — now, not before — was dictated by someone else, and she had to bite her lips to keep from crying.

(-)

It took them fifteen more minutes to get to Maggie and her group.

"Prepare to say your goodbyes," the mercenary instructed her, and Bridget blinked.

"What?"

"You're not bringing them out with me — you can say your goodbyes and hurry back up, if you remember the way. If not," the woman took a gun from the inside of her coat. "I assume you know already how to use a gun."

Bridget assumed this was not a war she wanted to wage; if the woman thought it best that she go back to the apartment, she would. Grudgingly, of course, but she'd already asked far too much of this woman; she already owed this almost-stranger and almost-friend too much, and so she swallowed her protests and said something else.

"I can't," Bridget said. The woman raised an eyebrow. "I mean — I mean I can't _morally _use a gun. I petitioned against the NRA for gun control —"

"In a life or death situation, I think that morals can be forgotten —"

"I signed petitions," she hissed. "I made three different t-shirt styles and yelled at people until they bought them."

The woman stared at her.

"Fine," snapped Bridget after a beat, "give me the gun."

The weapon was cold and hard and nothing like the one she'd held when she'd forced her father to take her to a shooting range ("do you even _know_ the crime rates in Gotham?" she'd ranted when she found out about the move. "Enough with the chauvinist crap, Daddy, I need to know."). She quickly turned the safety on, tucking it carefully inside the loose part of her sweater and ignoring the goose bumps that rose the moment the cold metal met her warm skin. The mercenary opened the door of the room quickly and quietly, motioning Bridget inside.

There were about fourteen of them, huddled inside of one of the abandoned rooms and talking in low voices. They all looked ratty; dirt coated their skin and the room smelled of sweat. Maggie stood in the center of them all, an unfamiliar coat draped around her shoulders and the silver of knife glinting inside one of the sleeves. Bridget was reminded of the man she'd stabbed — the one whose name she couldn't remember — and gave a shiver, before clearing her throat.

Most everyone in the room turned to regard her, eyes widening in disgust and horror and anger.

"You brought a mercenary?" snapped one of the men — the twenty something year old named Michael, if Bridget remembered correctly. He stood quickly, and Maggie did too, glaring at him sharply.

"We asked for help," she said, staring at him, hard.

"You did," agreed the mercenary after a moment of silence, and Bridget felt an air of tension and fear washing over the room. "But your friend doesn't know her way around City Hall. I do."

She glanced between Maggie and the mercenary. Her friend appeared to be sizing up her trainer, eyeing her carefully.

Maggie looked away from the mercenary and looked at Bridget, eyes widening as she took in the scar and her friend's pallor, the empty look in her eyes. _Later_, Bridget mouthed, unsure if there would ever be time to explain, to tell her what had happened — but not quite caring. The air still buzzed with distrust, and Bridget swallowed hard.

"If we're going," she said finally, her voice catching slightly, "we need to be quick."

"Hold on," said a woman who stood near Michael. Her red hair was tangled up in a bun and she was without a jacket, but her voice burned with doubt and fury. "We're supposed to trust you?" Her words were spat out, and her green eyes flicked between Maggie and Bridget and the mercenary constantly.

"Pam," said a softer looking woman who held the hands of two children. Bridget vaguely recognized her as the woman who'd hugged her last time. "We don't have a choice."

The air hummed until Maggie turned her head slightly to nod her approval to her group.

"Follow me," the mercenary barked. The soft looking woman and the kids were the first ones to depart, the woman hugging Bridget quickly and smiling at her before leaving. There was something about her that reminded Bridget of her mother, though she couldn't quite place what it was. Three men and four women left, some of them pausing to smile at Bridget and some walking past her as if she didn't exist at all. Michael and Pam were the last to leave, neither of them acknowledging her as they left.

Maggie alone remained.

"Tell me what happened," her friend said softly, and Bridget swallowed hard.

She was never one to cry in front of people — not friends, not family, not strangers on the subway — but she felt tears burning in her eyes and wiped them away with a shaking hand.

"The jury has never been my biggest fan and I kept giving people 'exile' not 'death' — which is their preferred sentence — and then everything was... bad." Her friend's eyes flashed with anger and surprise, and Bridget bit down on her tongue. "— And anyway, it's not important."

"It is," Maggie said, her eyes sad but her face hard, and Bridget was hit with the sudden realisation that she wasn't the only one suffering.

"Maggie, come on," said an unfamiliar voice — kind and slow and deep, rumbling like thunder and warm like a summers day — but Maggie didn't move.

"I'll see you soon," Bridget said, voice wavering, and Maggie's face crumbled ever so slowly.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I'll see you later."

Goodbyes had never been Bridget's strong suit, and she stared at her friend, trying to memorize her face as quickly as she could. She didn't have friends here, only one ally, and she wasn't sure when she'd see someone familiar again.

"If you see my parents—" Bridget started, and Maggie nodded before she even finished her sentence.

"I'll tell them you love them," she said quietly.

"And that I'm sorry?"

Maggie blinked, but nodded slowly. It took only a second for her to take a step towards Bridget, squeezing her into a firm hug, and Bridget hugged her back tightly, thinking that if she could only go with Maggie, she'd be able to find her family, and everything would go back to normal —

But Maggie let go and Bridget knew that nothing would ever be normal again, not even if she wanted it to be.

"If anyone comes near you," Bridget said evenly, "kick their ass for me."

"Same goes for you," Maggie said. "Especially when it comes to Crane."

Bridget froze for a moment, staring at the other girl with wide eyes. _I couldn't, _she thought, and the words burned at her mouth and mind, and she wanted to speak but _couldn't_ —

"Honestly, Bridget," she said quickly, "I think you should just make his life a living hell."

When Maggie left, her words hung in the air, and Bridget allowed herself to smile.

(-)

The empty apartment felt like a cage when she returned, the mercenary's words mixing with Maggie's until her head and soul felt weighed down.

She'd been uncharacteristically _lucky_ on her walk up, though perhaps lucky wasn't the right word; as she walked down the hallway just about the court, she could hear distant gunshots, laughter and screams. It had become the soundtrack of her life, but it still sent chills up her spine. Laughter and screams didn't go hand in hand, not for normal people, and hearing them so tightly entwined was eerie no matter how hard she tried to pretend otherwise.

Maggie's fate — and the fate of all the others — rested with the mercenary and part of that made Bridget incredibly uneasy. She trusted the woman, yes, but the mercenary was only one person, and if they were found, she had the option of saying she had too just stumbled upon the group of stragglers attempting to leave while court was in session.

The thought sickened her, formed a knot in her stomach. Bridget knew that she was forming ideas from nowhere, getting all worked up over nothing — if there'd been a struggle, she would have heard it — but the idea of Maggie and her friends (those kids couldn't have been older than twelve) being sentenced to death and Bridget not being able to stop it flashed through her mind and —

She tore towards the bathroom and fell at the ground in front of the toilet, grasping the sides of the white porcelain and heaving. Her stomach burned with the effort of it and she was reminded of the stinging of salt water, the feeling of waves crushing down on her, the feeling of the _mob_ grabbing at her, tugging her, cutting her —

She retched and then gasped, hands shaking. There was something darkly familiar about this, and she ran an unsteady hand through her hair. The ground beneath her churned like an ocean, and she steadied herself by grasping the cold porcelain of the toilet, her knees digging painfully into the cool, stiff floor.

_Would you have me kill you now, girl, or stay alive and do it yourself? _

Bane's words echoed in her mind loudly, filling every corner and polluting every safe place. Suicide. Opting out, they'd called it on a television show she'd seen once, and for a moment, it seemed like the sweetest thing — the standard "I love you" and "I'm sorry" had already been said, more or less, and it would be so simple to move to the kitchen and grab one of the knives, or a bottle of pills and end it —

She wouldn't even need to go that far, really. The gun — not so cold now, but just as hard and just as unfriendly — was still scraping at her stomach, growing more and more uncomfortable but somehow more inviting with each passing second —

Her nerve broke though, and she yanked both the gun and her sweater off, sliding them across the floor. They didn't go that far.

She felt hot tears spilling down her cheeks, and she wondered if this was what would happen, now, every time she felt something, every time she worried or was afraid —

"Fuck," she gasped, "fucking _fuck_."

She retched again, growing more nauseous from the noise of the clattering gun. Her stomach was tight still, her throat burning and her mind still fouled by Bane's words, but there was nothing left to get rid of, and so she curled her legs under herself and pulled down the toilet lid, resting her elbow there and wiping her mouth furiously.

Bridget reached up and flushed the toilet quickly; she hated the way it felt to be leaning over a toilet bowl and crying like a child when there were people about three floors below her dying.

She felt unclean and sullied, and she reached behind her and groped blindly for the shower curtain, ripping it backwards until it fell off. _Who cares, _she thought, kneeling because her legs were too weak to stand, and she turned the knob the way she'd seen Crane do, turned to water to a temperature that would scald and then down a few degrees, because she wasn't Daenerys Targaryen and she didn't burn anyway, not really. Perhaps she would've run a bath if she didn't feel so weak, if her arms didn't shake as she pulled off her jeans with trembling fingers, numb hands. In the end, she clambered inside with her t-shirt and underwear (not her bra, though, because God knew only one of those bras the mercenary had brought her actually fit), letting herself sit in the shower and the water beat against her back, searing into her skin.

_Grow up, _she thought as she sat, no longer crying but still weak, still thinking of Bane's words and Maggie and her friends.

The water slammed against her like a sheet of rain during a hurricane and she didn't fight it, didn't turn down the pressure or worry about the wetness of the floor outside. With her knees pressed tight against her chest and her eyes wide, staring at nothing and seeing everything, Bridget sat, allowing herself to be completely lost.

The list of names filled her head; Allison Beaumont and the nameless woman and the couple and the Anthony Meyer and all of those others, those poor, poor people. She was horrified to find that she could barely remember what they looked like. Perhaps it was because she'd allowed herself to become more invested in the tragedy of herself. Whatever the reason, it was enough to startle her into slamming off the shower with a trembling fist.

She was soaking wet and cold now, automatically cold, and the gun that she'd foolishly taken was lying tangled in her sweatshirt, and God only knew when Crane would be back or how long she'd spent in the shower. Panic came seeping in, and she stumbled towards the closet, yanking out the thickest, warmest towel she could find and wrapping the gun in her sweatshirt. She held both close to her, teeth chattering. Her skin felt grimy, despite having been soaked completely in water, and her stomach was tight again.

Treading carefully, she left the bathroom, breaking into a desperate run the second she moved from the wet tile. Why had she taken the gun? What was _wrong _with her? She couldn't shoot anybody, she couldn't do to people what Bane's men did — and she sure as hell wasn't going to kill anyone else, not with her own hands and by her own choice.

She reached the bedroom and scurried towards the bed, peering behind her to ensure that Crane wouldn't appear behind her. He didn't, and she let out quivering breath, quickly shoving the gun underneath the mattress.

The world was quiet for a moment.

She was panting and cold and angry, too, underneath the thick layer of fear and ice that surrounded her heart. Slowly, she let the towel fall from her, peeling her t-shirt off like a second skin and shedding the soaked underwear as well.

The bag of clothes was at the foot of the bed, and she walked towards it, tripping slightly on the carpet as she moved. The dizziness was still there but the knot in her stomach was gone; the nausea had passed and in its place it left a bitter taste in her mouth and a dull ache in her bones. She fell to her knees slowly, rummaging through the bag to find the largest shirt she could — it wasn't as comfy looking as her father's and not as worn, either, but it would do. Bridget pulled it on, letting it cling to her skin, too tired to be annoyed. The underwear was at the bottom of the bag, and instead of reaching in, she dumped it all out, shaking it to ensure she'd removed ever article of clothing. She awkwardly shimmed into the underwear, hindered by the wetness of her skin, ignoring the mess of clothes beneath her. For a single moment, she wondered if she might read Sherry's diary to calm herself — _Crane,_ she thought, half a warning and half something she couldn't quite name.

So instead of reading, she clambered into the bed and tucked herself into the blankets, nuzzling into a pillow and closing her eyes.

But Crane was still there, in the shadows of her thoughts.

She didn't want him and she didn't like him, but she harboured a certain amount of pity for him, even though she didn't want to. She couldn't _help_ it; Bridget wasn't an idiot, and she knew he didn't _want_ her to know what she knew. He didn't _want_ her to pity him. He didn't want anything from her, really, except for compliance, and Bridget didn't want to be his in any sense of the word. _Make his life a living hell_, Maggie had said, and she wanted to so badly that she burned and buzzed when she thought about it, her skin humming and hands twitching. She turned over, yanking the blankets up over her head.

She was asleep before she could think anything else.

(-)

He was buzzing; Bane's captive, the blonde woman, older than his own and braver than Bridget had been, even at the beginning; there was something irritatingly heroic in Bane's captive, something kind and angry and burning. He wondered what she was afraid of, and the thought consumed him. The vial of toxin in his pocket burned, and it was so _convenient_ that Bridget was inside the apartment, already half terrified and perfectly available to do whatever he pleased.

He turned the key, ignoring the sounds from the floors below — shouts of delight and anger and laughter, wild and mad. It sounded like Arkham, almost, missing only the constant shouts from guards and the meticulous clicking of shoes against dirty white floors.

She was screaming when he entered the apartment, hoarse and ear shattering, and he looked to the door with a furrowed brow. No; he had unlocked the door. There was no one inside but herself.

_Nightmares_, he thought, his lips twitching. They'd been plaguing his poor captive much more often nowadays than at the beginning. Or at least, she was more vocal about it now, murmuring and screeching and sobbing depending on how terrifying she found her dream.

She kept on screaming.

He sighed, removing his glasses and rubbing at the bridge of his nose absently. He placed the glasses back on, moving down the hallway and towards her room. The decent thing to do, he realised, would be to wake her from her nightmare.

But he'd never been one to do the decent thing, not even when he was a functioning member of society, and so Crane loitered in her doorway, watching her thrash around until her blue eyes opened in, wild and desperate.

When she saw him her face went slack.

"Why didn't you wake me?" she asked with a hoarse and dreamy voice, and Crane smirked.

Her hair was sticking up at all angles and her glasses were missing; she looked younger without them, and the dark circles under her eyes were more visible. He couldn't stop himself from casting his eyes to her chest for a second — he was human, though he often forgot it — and she stiffened, meeting his eyes darkly.

"My parents raised a gentleman," he said. "I know better than to wake someone who is sleeping."

Bridget gave him an unimpressed look. There was something pitying and knowing in her eyes for a moment though, Crane squinted at her, trying to decipher whether or not it'd been a trick of the light.

"I'm going back to sleep," she said slowly.

"Very well," he replied, turning. The remark was on his tongue and, before he could stop himself, he turned his head slightly and purred, "Sweet dreams, Miss Avery."

The quick intake of breath that she gave was not lost on him (half out of fear and half from something darker, something that she didn't want to admit to anyone, including herself), and Jonathan Crane smiled.

* * *

**Author's Note: **FUN STORY TIME KIDDOS, SO GATHER ROUND. One: today, the 28th of July, THE BRIDGET SHOW AS BEEN RENEWED ONCE AGAIN. Meaning that it's my birthday (and yeah, I've been making this pun like all day). Two: I WOULD'VE HAD THIS FOR YOU A WEEK SOONER BUT MICROSOFT WORD IS HASHTAG BITCHMADE AND DIDN'T SAVE IT PROPERLY. There were fifteen pages. Such a tragic loss. . .

ANYWAY, I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY THIS. CONSIDER IT MY BIRTHDAY GIFT TO ALL OF YOU.

- Bridget

PS: on my 8tracks account (pandorasocks), there's like a seventeen track Crane/Bridget thing. I'm not telling you to listen to it, but listen to it.


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